Trump tariffs fallout: Dissent brews in Republican party; Trump tells rebels, ‘You don’t negotiate like I do’ | World News

United States President Donald Trump’s reciprocal tariffs kicked in on Wednesday, including steep 104 per cent tariffs on China, triggering fresh carnage across markets. Trump has come under fire from long-time allies globally, but trouble may also be brewing in his backyard. There’s a growing cohort of Republicans expressing displeasure over Trump’s economic manoeuvres.While a majority of Republican lawmakers have backed Trump, some worry that the fallout from the backlash on rising costs may carry a political price. Many have urged the adminration to strike quick deals with countries to bring down tariffs.
Trump hits out at ‘PANICANs’
Trump addressed the dissenters at the National Republican Congressional Committee’s fundraising dinner on Tuesday night. “I see some rebel Republican, some guy who wants to grandstand, say, ‘I think that Congress should take over negotiations.’ Let me tell you, you don’t negotiate like I negotiate,” Trump said.
“We have to remain united,” he asserted.
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On April 7, Trump had alluded to the dissenters as ‘PANICAN’, suggesting it was a “new party based on weak and stupid people”. While he didn’t elaborate on the term, it’s believed that PANICAN may be a portmanteau of ‘panicked Republican’.
Growing Republican dissent over Trump’s tariffs
Billionaires Elon Musk and Ken Langone, among the biggest donors to Republicans, have voiced their criticism of Trump’s tariffs. Citing insiders, The Washington Post reported that Musk had made several direct appeals to Trump to reconsider the reciprocal tariffs. He even berated Trump’s trade advisor, Peter Navarro, in a social media post on X, and also shared a video seemingly backing free trade. Meanwhile,  Langone, co-founder of Home Depot, said that he believed Trump was being “poorly advised his advisers about this trade situation — and the formula they are applying”.
Republican lawmakers are also fighting back. Last week, Republican Senator Chuck Grassley and Democratic Senator Maria Cantwell introduced a bipartisan Bill that would require the President to give 48-hour notice, including an explanation, to Congress before imposing new tariffs. The lawmakers can then decide to sign off on new tariffs within 60 days of their imposition or automatically block their enforcement. Besides Grassley, half a dozen Republican lawmakers have signed onto the Bill.
While the numbers are not nearly enough to guarantee that the Bill would pass through the House and the Senate, where Republicans hold the majority, the show of dissent underlines the cracks within party ranks. Trump has already threatened to veto the Bill if Congress passes it.Story continues below this ad
Meanwhile, another Republican Congressman, Don Bacon, is building support for a Bill, which would act as “companion legislation” to the Trade Review Act, 2025, introduced Grassley and Cantwell. According to Axios, a dozen Republicans have considered signing onto the Bill.
Several Republicans also voiced their apprehensions at the Congressional Committee meeting. They asked for explicit timelines for the tariffs and whether there was a way to measure if the tariffs were actually working. Senator Thom Tillis put it bluntly: “Whose throat do I get to choke if this proves to be wrong?” Later, Tillis played down his remarks, stating that they were made “in jest”. However, he expressed scepticism over the adminration’s tariffs.
Senator Ted Cruz, a long-time ally of the President, also criticised the tariffs on his podcast released Friday. He stated that the Trump adminration’s latest measures “would destroy jobs here at home and do real damage to the US economy if we had tariffs everywhere”.
Trump dismisses concerns over tariffs
Trump and his aides, however, have maintained that tariffs were crucial for their America First agenda and would bring in jobs. “I know what the hell I am doing. I know what I am doing, and you know what I am doing, too. That’s why you vote for me,” Trump told Republicans last night.Story continues below this ad
“I am telling you, these countries are calling us up. They are dying to make a deal,” Trump assured them.
US Trade Representative Jamieson Greer, meanwhile, refused to give a timeline for these negotiations, saying that a long-running trade deficit “will not be resolved overnight.”
— with inputs from Axios, The Washington Post