Republicans ran away from Trump's Canadian tariffs, but not far enough

When wildfires were burning across Canada in July, and the smoke was blowing into the United States, Michigan's Mike Rogers was among those demanding punishment.

The Republican senator, echoing U.S. President Donald Trump, said Canada should pay more, on top of the current tariffs, to cover the cost of that pollution.

"Canada must be held accountable for endangering Americans, and I will work with your administration to ensure they are!," he wrote on X, in a reply to Trump.

Rogers had, separately, enthused about the tariffs — telling Fox News they were "really positive" for the U.S. and that it was "absolutely unacceptable" for Canada to be selling cars into his border state.

Fast forward three months and Rogers — struggling in race for Senate — tried to cast himself as a friend of Canada.

While drinking a Labatt Blue and alluding to hockey, he called for an end to the tariffs in an ad posted four weeks ago.

"Here in Michigan, we know that Canada is not our enemy," he said.

A man votes in the primary election at Northwestern High School in Detroit, on Aug. 4. (Nic Antaya/The Associated Press)

It was one of many examples of Republicans trying to distance themselves from Trump’s trade war and anti-Canadian rhetoric.

Now, according to reporting from the Wall Street Journal, the Democrats are hoping to use Republican discomfort with the cross-border trade war to end tariffs on Canada.

Democratic push to end trade war

“There is overwhelming support for repealing the tariffs on products from Canada,” Oregon Democratic Sen. Ron Wyden, ranking member of the Senate Finance Committee, told the WSJ on Wednesday.

Wyden and other Democrats believed they might be able to flip enough Republicans against Trump on the issue to override a veto, the Journal reported. That would likely require persuading about 30 to 35 Republican House members, and 11 to 13 Republican senators, the precise number depending on votes yet to be tallied from Tuesday's elections.

The new House and Senate will be seated on January 3, just two days after punishing 50 per cent tariffs on all Canadian cars, trucks, automotive parts, and steel are scheduled to take effect.

Democratic Senator-elect Abdul El-Sayed, who defeated Rogers in Michigan, told  the MS Now morning show on Thursday he was keen to work to lift the "stupid tariffs on Canada," and  later told CNN  that ending Trump's "vanity trade war" was a legislative priority for him in Washington.

“There is no economic reason why we are having a tariff war with our biggest trading partner. This has to end.”

That seems to be one of the lessons American politicians will take from the 2026 midterm elections, perhaps with lasting and positive effects for Canada.

From the early days of Trump’s second term, Americans have shown very little interest in picking fights with Canada. Although Trump's verbal attacks on Canada were a staple at rallies throughout October, the issue again failed to catch fire within the MAGA coalition.

Exit polls on Tuesday, according to CNN, found that two-thirds of American voters believed tariffs had hurt both the national and their local economies.

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The tariffs were widely seen as having combined with the Iran war to create a double price shock.

Rural America has been hit especially hard by the spike in diesel, which contributed to higher costs for fertilizer. All of the eight main fertilizers used by U.S. farmers cost more than they did a year ago, according to one industry analysis.

Those numbers were key to the massive hemorrhaging of Republican votes in red states such as Kansas.

Trump backs down for Maine, Kansas

In two critical Senate races in Maine and Kansas, Republican candidates appealed directly to Trump to cancel or reconsider specific trade actions against Canada in order to avoid harming voters in their states (and therefore their campaigns).

In Maine, Susan Collins first asked him to drop tariffs on road salt, warning that they would dramatically increase costs for small municipalities, which might then have to raise property taxes. Trump complied.

Later, Trump lifted tariffs on about $5.1 billion US worth of goods to help her. (He replaced them with new tariffs on other goods, although for only about half the monetary value.)

Trump’s reversals weren’t enough to save Collins. Her Democratic opponent Troy Jackson gave his victory speech wearing a button that said "We can’t eat road salt!"

Sen. Ted Cruz of Texas speaks at a campaign event for Republican candidate Mike Rogers in Grosse Pointe Woods, Mich., on Oct. 28. (Paul Sancya/The Associated Press)

In Kansas, Sen. Roger Marshall asked Trump not to proceed with actions against Montreal-based Bombardier, which makes jets in Wichita. Again, Trump complied, but Marshall lost anyway.

Several Republicans mentioned tariffs in post-mortems of the midterm rout.

"Tragically, we alienated rural America,” said Sen. Ted Cruz of Texas, who was not up for re-election but saw his junior counterpart lose to Democrat James Talarico. The state's governor also lost to a Democrat.

"Tariffs have made everything too expensive, and the Iran war has dragged on too long.”

Cruz blamed the rout, in order, on the high cost of living, corruption, the cost of the war, sub-par candidates and the trade war with Canada.

The tariffs were, meanwhile, a topic of victory speeches in some of the biggest races.

"I will fight to end these chaotic tariffs," said senator-elect Josh Turek after his upset victory in Iowa.

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Ohio senator-elect Sherrod Brown, famous for opposing NAFTA, said the same.

The success of the affordability message seemed to position Democrats as hard-core free-traders in a way they might not have otherwise been.

"The tariffs are ruining everything," became a kind of slogan for Talarico, who made a video at the Texas State Fair in which he blamed the price of fried Oreos and funnel cake on tariffs.

Tariffs were even an issue down in Mississippi, where underdog Scott Colom accused incumbent Sen. Cindy Hyde-Smith of going along with them. (That race still hasn't been called.)

Canada is Mississippi's biggest export market, and Colom’s region is home to the state’s furniture industry, which normallly ships about $34 million US worth of kitchen cabinets, bedding and other furniture to Canada annually.

Democratic Senate candidate Scott Colom speaks to his supporters during his election watch party on Tuesday, in Jackson, Miss. (Eric Shelton/Mississippi Today/The Associated Press)

Not only has the cost of framing a sofa or recliner increased because of tariffs on Canadian lumber, but the furniture now also faces a 50 per cent counter-tariff.

And while Mississippi has its own forestry industry, it depends on specialized logging machinery, much of it imported from Canada and also subject to tariffs.

Colom vowed to local media, if elected, that his first job would be to "get the tariff policy back to Congress."

The tariffs "are not working," he repeated in his election-night speech.

Canada’s softwood lumber industry might see some irony in the fact that its old nemesis, Wyden, is likely to lead the charge for free trade with Canada (he's expected to chair the Senate finance committee).

Wyden is a lumber hardliner who has butted heads with Canada for years, but more recently his positions have reflected a trend seen across the party. The success of the affordability message, linking high costs directly to tariffs and war, has strengthened a previously lukewarm commitment to free trade.

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Wyden has opposed all of Trump’s tariffs on Canada, calling them a "shakedown” and a "reckless abuse.”

He says his fellow Democrats plan to "reassert congressional authority" over U.S. trade policy and roll back tariffs Trump instituted under various emergency authorities — good news for Canada.

But perhaps the best news for Canada from the midterms is that politicians in both parties appear to have concluded that tariffs on Canada cost votes, and that opposing them is good politics.