(WASHINGTON, D.C.) — Senate Republican Mitch McConnell announced Tuesday he will vote to terminate national emergency tariff authorities this week, delivering a sharp rebuke to protectionist trade policies that he says have damaged Kentucky’s economy.
The Kentucky senator, a senior member of the Senate Agriculture Committee, criticized what he called “indiscriminate trade war against both close allies and strategic adversaries,” arguing that months of tariffs have failed to deliver promised benefits while harming workers, farmers, and consumers.
“Protectionists in Washington insist that the past several months have vindicated the policy,” McConnell said in a statement. “But Kentuckians are especially well-equipped to sort the bluster from the truth.”
McConnell outlined specific economic damage to his state, noting that new trade barriers have disrupted supply chains critical to Kentucky’s automotive and appliance manufacturing sectors, which employ thousands of workers. Retaliatory tariffs have “turned agricultural income upside down” for the state’s nearly 70,000 family farms, he said, with Kentucky bourbon caught in the crossfire from the beginning.
The senator took aim at tariff supporters who tout revenue collection while downplaying costs. “They don’t talk nearly as much about how much of that revenue they’ll spend protecting American growers and producers from the avoidable harm of their policies,” he said.
McConnell also pushed back against attempts to invoke President Ronald Reagan’s legacy in defense of tariffs, saying “no cross-eyed reading of Reagan will reveal otherwise” regarding the historical economic harms of trade wars.
“Tariffs make both building and buying in America more expensive,” McConnell said, adding that consumers ultimately bear the costs through higher prices across the board.
The Senate is expected to vote this week on resolutions to end the emergency authorities used to impose the tariffs.
