ICYMI: On Bloomberg TV’s Balance of Power, Shaheen Details Her Senate Floor Effort to Block Trump Tariff Taxes from Taking Effect, Highlights Trade War Harms to Families and Businesses
(Washington, DC) – U.S. Senator Jeanne Shaheen (D-NH), Ranking Member of the U.S. Senate Foreign Relations Committee and a top member of the U.S. Senate Small Business Committee, joined Bloomberg TV’s Balance of Power last night to discuss her Senate floor effort to block President Trump’s tariffs from taking effect on August 1 and lead her colleagues in detailing the real harm the Administration’s trade war causes to American families and businesses. Shaheen relayed the concerns she heard from Granite State small businesses during recent visits about the high costs, uncertainty and supply chain challenges posed by the President’s trade war.
Click HERE to watch Senator Shaheen’s full interview.
Key quotes from Senator Shaheen:
- “I went to the floor several months ago with the same unanimous consent request for legislation that I’ve introduced, and the Republican majority objected to that – but I think it’s important to continue to raise the concern. Because every business that I visit in New Hampshire has expressed concern about the tariffs.”
- “The other thing that I’ve heard from literally every business that I’ve visited is that, as much of a problem as the high tariffs are and the increases in cost, it’s the uncertainty that it means for their business. Because they don’t know what the President’s gonna do. [...] So, businesses don’t know how to invest, they don’t know how to plan – and that creates real problems for businesses and the people who work there.”
- “We just had a hearing in Foreign Relations today on critical minerals in Africa, and the fact that we’re not producing those critical minerals in the United States that we need for the auto industry, for our appliances and virtually everything we do. So we need to do that, but these tariffs aren’t going to help us with those critical minerals. We need to make some of those investments, and we need to have a strategy to do that.”
Following the interview, Shaheen took to the Senate floor to call for unanimous consent to pass her Protecting Americans from Tax Hikes on Imported Goods Act and highlight the devastating impacts the trade war has on families, small businesses, American manufacturing and key trade partnerships across the world. If Senate Republicans had not blocked the move, Shaheen’s legislation would have clarified that the President does not have the authority to invoke the International Emergency Economic Powers Act (IEEPA) to level sweeping tariffs.
Click HERE to watch Shaheen’s remarks in full.
Senator Shaheen is helping lead efforts in Congress to mitigate the harmful impacts of President Trump's tariffs. Last week, Shaheen helped introduce bipartisan legislation, Creating Access to Necessary American-Canadian Duty Adjustments (CANADA) Act, that would exempt United States-owned small businesses from the sweeping tariffs imposed on Canadian products. Last month, Shaheen led 30 Senators in filing an amicus brief in a key case, Oregon v. Department of Homeland Security, challenging the Trump Administration’s abuse of emergency powers to impose tariffs. In January, Shaheen introduced the Protecting Americans from Tax Hikes on Imported Goods Act.
In recent months, Shaheen has traveled across the Granite State to discuss the impact of tariffs on New Hampshire’s tourism industry and to visit businesses impacted by President Trump’s trade war including Brueckner Group USA, Colby Footwear, Chatila’s Bakery, C&J, DCI Furniture, Mount Cabot Maple, American Calan Inc. and NH Ball Bearings.
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