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McConnell: Senate unlikely to take up legislation to block Trump tariffs

Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell, R-Ky., said March 13 that the Senate is unlikely to pursue legislation to block or override President Donald Trump’s tariffs on steel and aluminum imports, despite GOP legislative efforts to stifle the controversial duties, according to a report by ABC News.

McConnell said that any bill overriding the tariffs, which would need to be signed into law by Trump, would likely be a lost cause.

“It’s highly unlikely we’d be dealing with that in a legislative way,” McConell said, according to the ABC report. “The thought that the president would sign a bill that would undo actions he’s taken strikes me as remote at best.”

Sen. Jeff Flake, R-Ariz., a fervent Trump opponent who is retiring at the end of the year, introduced legislation March 12 that would nullify Trump's steel and aluminum tariffs by prohibiting the implementation of any changes to the Harmonized Tariff Schedule included in Trump's proclamations on steel and aluminum signed March 8.

Trump implemented a 25% tariff on U.S. steel imports as well as a 10% tariff on U.S. aluminum imports on grounds of national security, saying that a dependence on foreign imports poses a potential threat to the American military.

Speaking on the Senate floor March 12, Flake called the tariffs "irresponsible" and warned that they could lead to economic disaster and trade wars.

"Those who have reservations about these tariffs ought to support this bill," Flake said. "I urge my colleagues to join me in exercising our constitutional oversight to invalidate these irresponsible tariffs."

Flake is the first GOP congressman to introduce legislation aimed at impeding the Trump tariffs, though Sen. Mike Lee, R-Utah, in January 2017 introduced the Global Trade Accountability Act, which would require that all executive branch trade actions, including raising tariffs, be approved by Congress before being implemented.

Following the tariff implementation, Lee said in a March 12 op-ed in the Daily Signal that the tariffs will "almost certainly backfire" and urged Congress to consider his bill to counter what he said is the president's "virtually unilateral power to decide and implement trade policy."

Lee's bill is before the Senate Finance Committee, whose chairman, Sen. Orrin Hatch, R-Utah, has also spoken out against the tariffs, calling them "misguided."

However, Hatch seemed to soften his tone in the ensuing days, telling reporters March 12 to "wait and see what happens," adding that Trump "knows that we're going to have to work that out," CNN reported.

Sen. John Cornyn, R-Texas, the second-ranking Senate Republican, also said he believed that Republicans and the president were "making progress without legislation," according to the CNN report.

The tariffs go into effect March 23, the same day that Congress breaks for a two-week recess.