Nearly the entire Senate Democratic caucus voted to hand President Trump limited tariff power as part of a Russia sanctions package, a move that now fuels a bitter internal debate as Trump levies 50% duties on Canadian goods.
Before senators left Washington, the Democratic caucus backed a sweeping sanctions bill targeting Russia that included a provision granting Trump authority to impose levies of up to 500% on Russian imports and tariffs of up to 100% on the top five countries purchasing Russian energy, a list that includes China and India. Only nine Democrats voted against the package, joined by Sen. Rand Paul, the Kentucky Republican who has long opposed broad tariff powers regardless of which party holds the White House.
The vote handed Trump exactly the kind of trade weapon Democrats spent years trying to claw back from the executive branch. And it came just before the president slapped 50% tariffs on roughly $20 billion worth of Canadian goods, reigniting a trade confrontation with one of America's closest allies and largest trading partners.
Sen. Ron Wyden of Oregon, the chamber's most vocal Democratic critic of the tariff provisions, took to the Senate floor to warn colleagues they were making a serious mistake. Wyden and Paul introduced an amendment to strip the tariff language from the broader sanctions bill. It failed.
Fox News Digital reported Wyden's blunt floor remarks:
"It gives Donald Trump massive new tariff authority that he can use to threaten our trading partners and raise prices on the American people."
Wyden went further, predicting regret across the caucus.
"I believe senators will come to deeply regret voting to give Donald Trump this tariff authority."
That warning landed differently once Trump moved on Canada. Democrats who backed the package now face an uncomfortable question: why did they vote to expand the tariff toolkit of a president they have spent years accusing of abusing trade powers?
Sen. Richard Blumenthal of Connecticut, who pushed the sanctions package for nearly two years alongside the late Sen. Lindsey Graham, defended the vote by arguing that courts would block any overreach. Blumenthal told Fox News Digital that the bill's language explicitly limits tariff authority to the top five purchasers of Russian energy, and no further.
"If Donald Trump wants to break this law, he will be restrained by the courts, just as when he broke the law on tariffs previously."
Blumenthal added:
"We can't do any more than be explicit in limiting his authority to the top five purchasers, and only those countries, by the terms, specific in the legislation."
The argument amounts to a concession: Congress passed a bill granting tariff authority it does not fully trust the president to use as written, and its fallback plan is litigation. Courts did block Trump's sweeping tariffs unveiled on "Liberation Day", the broad set of duties Trump later said cost the nation trillions, but relying on judges to restrain powers you just voted to hand over is not a guardrail. It is an admission that the guardrail was never built into the bill.
Sen. Raphael Warnock of Georgia took a different approach. Rather than opposing the package or demanding the tariff provisions be stripped, Warnock sought guarantees directly from U.S. Trade Representative Jamieson Greer that the tariffs in the sanctions bill would be limited to the top five energy trading partners with the Kremlin.
Warnock told Fox News Digital the sanctions were necessary to hold Russian President Vladimir Putin accountable.
"It was important to hold Putin accountable. He is a war criminal. His aggression towards Ukraine has national security implications for us. But at the same time, it was important to put some guardrails on this president. And I think I made considerable progress in making sure that that happens."
What Warnock described as "considerable progress" amounted to commitments from a Trump administration official, not binding statutory language, not a floor amendment, not a separate vote. Whether those assurances carry legal weight if the administration later interprets the bill more broadly remains an open question. The nature of Greer's guarantees, written, verbal, or otherwise, was not specified.
Democrats who have repeatedly folded in high-stakes legislative standoffs chose once again to accept assurances rather than demand enforceable constraints.
Sen. Elizabeth Warren of Massachusetts was among the nine Democrats who voted against the package. Warren told reporters last month that Trump "has shown what he will do with broad tariff authority."
"Heck, he's shown what he'll do even if he doesn't have authority."
Warren's objection tracked with Wyden's: giving this president new tariff power, even embedded in a Russia sanctions bill, was reckless given his record. But the caucus voted the other way. The overwhelming majority of Senate Democrats decided the political value of a Russia sanctions vote outweighed the risk of expanding Trump's trade authority.
Paul, the lone Republican to vote against the package, framed the issue in economic rather than partisan terms.
"Do not let sympathy for Ukraine blind you to the reality of tariffs."
After the vote, Trump introduced 50% tariffs against Canada on roughly $20 billion worth of goods. The move had nothing to do with Russia or the sanctions package. But it underscored precisely the concern Wyden and Warren had raised: a president with expanded tariff authority will use tariff authority, and not necessarily in the ways Congress intended.
The Canada tariff escalation has become a flashpoint in the broader trade debate. Democrats who voted for the sanctions package now find themselves in the awkward position of criticizing Trump's use of tariffs against a close ally while having just voted to give him the power to impose even steeper levies, up to 500%, on Russian goods and up to 100% on countries doing energy business with Moscow.
The political math is not lost on anyone. Democrats are eyeing Senate seats in the next cycle and need to campaign as the party that stands tough on Russia without appearing to have enabled Trump's broader trade agenda. That needle may be impossible to thread. Voters watching their grocery bills and import prices climb are unlikely to care whether the tariff authority came from a Russia bill or a standalone trade measure.
The pattern of expanding executive trade power and then objecting to its use has become a recurring feature of Democratic strategy on tariffs. It suggests a caucus more interested in the optics of each individual vote than in the cumulative effect of the authorities it keeps granting.
The nine Democrats who voted no, a group that includes Wyden and Warren, may have the stronger argument in hindsight. They warned that embedding tariff authority in a popular sanctions bill was a mistake, and the Canada tariffs arrived almost immediately to prove the point. The amendment Wyden and Paul introduced to strip the tariff language would have let Democrats vote for Russia sanctions without expanding trade powers. The caucus rejected it.
Trump first floated aggressive tariff policies during his 2024 campaign. Democrats spent that campaign warning voters about the economic consequences of broad tariffs. Some of those same Democrats just voted to give him new ones. The economic consequences of tariff policy are real and measurable, and the senators who voted yes own a share of whatever comes next.
Blumenthal's defense, that the courts will restrain Trump if he exceeds the bill's limits, concedes the central problem. If you believe a president will misuse a power, the answer is not to grant the power and hope a judge intervenes. The answer is not to grant the power.
Democrats spent years arguing that Trump could not be trusted with broad executive authority on trade. Then, when the Russia sanctions vote came, they decided he could be trusted with just a little. That distinction may make sense in a committee hearing. It will not survive a campaign trail.
