On Senate Floor, Shaheen Leads Colleagues in Attempts to Lessen Harmful Impacts of Trump Tariff Taxes on American Families and Businesses; Republicans Block Shaheen Bill to Shield Granite Staters from Higher Costs
**Shaheen’s bill would have clarified that the President does not have the authority to level sweeping tariffs through the International Emergency Economic Powers Act (IEEPA), but it was blocked from passage by Senate Republicans**
(Washington, DC) – Ahead of many of President Trump’s sweeping tariffs taking effect on Friday, 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 Committee on Small Business and Entrepreneurship, took to the Senate floor this evening to call for unanimous consent to pass her Protecting Americans from Tax Hikes on Imported Goods Act and lead her colleagues in highlighting the devastating impacts the President’s 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.
U.S. Senators Peter Welch (D-VT), Maria Cantwell (D-WA), Ed Markey (D-MA), Ron Wyden (D-OR), Amy Klobuchar (D-MN) and Richard Blumenthal (D-CT) joined Shaheen to underscore the damaging effects of the Trump tariff taxes.
Key quotes from Senator Shaheen:
- “Those tariffs are expected to add about $2,400 in costs for the average household per year. That's why I introduced the Protecting Americans from Tax Hike on Imported Goods Act. This bill states clearly that the International Emergency Economic Powers Act cannot be used to place taxes on imports. If the President needs to block a dangerous product, he still can under my legislation. But if there is a real threat, I think we'd want to stop it, not just tax it. That's what my bill does. It makes clear what a Federal Court has already found: that IEEPA, the International Emergency Economic Powers Act, does not authorize tariffs. Passing my bill would give businesses and families more certainty to plan for the future, and to keep more of their hard-earned dollars in their pockets.”
- “Now we just saw a deal announced with the EU by the President and Ursula von der Leyen, the head of the European Commission, forcing 15% taxes on imports. Now compare that to what we were paying in 2024 for at the same time. That was about 1.5%. So under this “great deal” that the President negotiated with the EU, Americans are going to be paying ten times what we paid last year. And with Japan, President Trump agreed to a 15% tax. That's also ten times what we were paying last year. So, let's not pretend that these are some big wins. The President can announce that, but they're only a slight improvement on a crisis that the President created himself.”
- “At a time when people are rightly worried about the rising cost of living, Trump's tariffs amount to a tax to make everything from clothes to housing to food even more expensive. For example, last month, home prices hit a record high. And these tariffs could add more than $10,000 to the cost of a home. Coffee prices hit a record high earlier this year, and now President Trump wants to put a 50% tariff on Brazil, our largest source of coffee. As families do their back to school shopping, they're going to see higher prices for clothing and shoes. Those prices could go up by 35% by the end of the year. And for new parents, just for example, the price of one stroller at Walmart went up 50% in two months.”
Full Remarks as Delivered
On Friday, we may be facing the next escalation in the President's trade war. The tariffs that the President announced in April on virtually every country in the world are set to go into full effect tomorrow night at 12:01 AM.
Those tariffs are expected to add about $2,400 in costs for the average household per year.
That's why I introduced the Protecting Americans from Tax Hike on Imported Goods Act. This bill states clearly that the International Emergency Economic Powers Act cannot be used to place taxes on imports. If the President needs to block a dangerous product, he still can under my legislation.
But if there is a real threat, I think we'd want to stop it, not just tax it. That's what my bill does. It makes clear what a Federal Court has already found: That IEEPA, the International Emergency Economic Powers Act, does not authorize tariffs.
Passing my bill would give businesses and families more certainty to plan for the future, and to keep more of their hard-earned dollars in their pockets.
Virtually every business in New Hampshire that I've visited since the President announced his proposed tariffs has said that, in addition to the tariffs, the uncertainty is as difficult for them as the tariffs.
So, I'm disappointed that Senator Crapo decided to block this commonsense legislation. Sadly, I'm not surprised.
But this bill would do so much to help families and businesses in all of our states. It would shield them from higher costs.
And we've been hearing about some of these deals that Senator Crapo referred to that have been reached with the EU and Japan. But let's be clear about what those deals mean, because even after those deals, those “agreements”, trade agreements, Americans are going to be left paying dramatically higher tariffs.
A new analysis this week found that we will be paying the highest tariffs since the Great Depression. And we saw what those tariffs before the Great Depression contributed to.
Now we just saw a deal announced with the EU by the President and Ursula von der Leyen, the head of the European Commission, forcing 15% taxes on imports.
Now compare that to what we were paying in 2024 for at the same time. That was about 1.5%. So under this “great deal” that the President negotiated with the EU, Americans are going to be paying ten times what we paid last year.
And with Japan, President Trump agreed to a 15% tax. That's also ten times what we were paying last year.
So, let's not pretend that these are some big wins. The President can announce that, but they're only a slight improvement on a crisis that the President created himself.
At a time when people are rightly worried about the rising cost of living, Trump's tariffs amount to a tax to make everything from clothes to housing to food even more expensive.
For example, last month, home prices hit a record high. And these tariffs could add more than $10,000 to the cost of a home.
Coffee prices hit a record high earlier this year, and now President Trump wants to put a 50% tariff on Brazil, our largest source of coffee.
As families do their back to school shopping, they're going to see higher prices for clothing and shoes.
Those prices could go up by 35% by the end of the year.
And for new parents, just for example, the price of one stroller at Walmart went up 50% in two months.
And there are countless more products that are facing higher prices.
So let's be clear: These tariffs do nothing to bring down costs. And in fact, I could add, as I said earlier in this statement, about $2,400 to the average household's yearly expenses.
That's money that most families don't have just lying around. We have all of those costs from these tariffs. And yet at this moment, 30 hours from when the tariffs are going to go into effect, we still have seen no official notice implementing any of these deals.
And that includes, by the way, no clarity on whether prescription drugs coming from Europe will face a 15% tariff starting in two days.
I had a chance to meet with a pharmaceutical company this week, and they were lamenting what the impact was going to be on prescription drug prices because of the tariffs from the EU.
Last Friday, I visited the Brueckner Group in New Hampshire. They supply equipment to domestic manufacturers and import some of their specialized machines, which they make in Europe.
The machines they bring in are sold to manufacturers here in the U.S. to make everything from IV bags to toothpaste containers. They have 80 employees in the U.S., and far more work on their machines at other companies across the country.
They saw orders put on hold in April, and further investments in the U.S. are delayed because they can't be certain what the tariffs are going to be that they might face.
So they told me that even worse than the tariffs in some way, is the uncertainty that's been created, the chaos that's been created by President Trump's announcements because people don't know how to plan. Businesses don't know what to invest in.
I believe in supporting domestic manufacturing. It's New Hampshire's third largest industry, but half of all imports are raw materials and intermediate goods. The very things that domestic manufacturers rely on.
Instead of supporting domestic manufacturing, these trade policies are making future American manufacturing more expensive. And furthermore, they’re threatening jobs.
You know, my husband and I started out our married life owning and operating a small business. I know the hardest part of small businesses is growing and sustaining those businesses when you're uncertain about what's going to happen. And that's what these tariffs create. As I heard, Brueckner Group USA, as I've heard of every business I've visited.
When I visited Brueckner four days ago, we had a 10% tax on everything imported from the EU, and at the time, that was set to jump to 30% this Friday. Then Sunday we saw an agreement to set the tax at 15%, but with unclear exceptions to that tax. Like as I heard from the pharmaceutical company, with prescription drugs.
I also heard from Flight Coffee Roasters in Bedford, New Hampshire. They're worried about the President's threat to place new tariffs on Brazil because they've already been paying a 10% markup on coffee because of these tariffs. Now they're facing a 50% tax on Brazilian coffee starting on Friday, and they have no choice but to charge consumers more.
Their most popular product comes from Brazil. So this is a big hit to their business. And they can't be sure how this is going to impact their sales.
And we should be clear, the U.S. has a trade surplus with Brazil.
This threat is just because the President wants Brazil's independent judiciary to stop the prosecution of Brazil's former President.
How is any business supposed to plan for that kind of rationale and for those kinds of swings?
They need to secure financing. They need to place orders. They need to invest in order to grow in the months and years ahead.
But building a new plant and moving production takes time. In some cases, it takes years.
So how can companies plan when they don't even know whether the Trump tax, his tariff, is going to be 10% or 30% or something in between or something higher?
New Hampshire's in a housing crisis. How can builders plan their costs when no one can tell them if there's going to be a new 30 or even 50% tax on their materials come Friday?
And how can a family already struggling with high costs continue to pay the rent and put food on the table if their household expenses are going up $2,400 this year?
And now, on Friday, the administration is planning to make the good businesses and families need 10 or 30 or 40 or 50% more expensive overnight.
This President promised to lower the price of everything: Groceries, rent, energy. What these tariffs do is just the opposite.
And we're hearing a lot of positive spin from the administration about the deals that they're striking. But let me end by making two points.
First, we heard a lot of talk about 90 deals in 90 days. Well, we're way past that deadline. And we've seen six, count them, six announcements. And it's not even clear that Vietnam has actually agreed to what the President announced.
Second, I want to remind all of us that these deals all force Americans and American businesses to pay a tax rate that is far higher than what we saw before the President engaged in this trade war.
I talked earlier about how for both Europe and Japan, Americans will face a tax that's ten times higher than we paid last year. That same trend holds across every deal he's announced.
With Indonesia, he agreed to a 19% tax, four times what we paid last year. With the Philippines, a 20% tax, up from 1.3%. So 15 times what we paid last year. And for the UK, where we have a trade surplus, again, a trade surplus, he agreed to a 10% tariff, again ten times what we paid in 2024.
So we should be very clear: All of these rates are an increase from what Americans have been paying since April.
This President has raised average tariffs from 2.5% to more than 17%, the highest level since the Great Depression.
Again and again, he is adding cost to American families and businesses. And what are these costs for? They’re to finance tax cuts for the wealthiest Americans, for the biggest corporations.
The end result of the President's art of the deal on trade is higher costs for families, uncertainty for businesses and alienated allies who no longer view America as a reliable partner to do business with.
Thank you, Mr. President. I yield the floor.
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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