The day after the Senate vote on the Kaine bill, another bipartisan bill, the Trade Review Act of 2025, was introduced by Sens. Chuck Grassley (R-Iowa) and Maria Cantwell (D-Wash.). It would require the president to notify Congress within 48 hours of the imposition of any tariffs, along with his reasons for doing so. Congress would then have 60 days in which to approve the tariffs, or the tariffs would expire.
So far, six Republican senators have signed on as co-sponsors of the Grassley-Cantwell bill. In addition to McConnell, Collins, and Murkowski, Sens. Jerry Moran (Kan.), Thom Tillis (N.C.), and Todd Young (Ind.), have signed on. It is unclear at this point whether the measure will be brought to the Senate floor after the Easter recess.
It is also uncertain at this point whether the president’s tariff moves, including pauses and adjustments, will become so injurious to the national and international economic health that Congress will eventually come around to requiring by law the pre-approval for any tariff increases a president proposes, as proposed by the Grassley-Cantwell measure.
The best argument the president has going so far is that flexibility during an international economic emergency is a powerful tool to wield as a bargaining lever to get other countries to come to the table and work-out compromise trade agreements. The worst argument is that the global trading system will somehow benefit from all this turmoil.
For now, many Republicans are sitting on their cards, hoping that somehow the Supreme Court will bail them out by finding Trump’s tariffs unconstitutional, and thereby avoid any retaliatory actions by the president.
