Then President Donald Trump speaks to the media while flanked by Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell after arriving at a Senate Republican weekly policy luncheon at the U.S. Capitol March 26, 2019 in Washington, DC.
Mark Wilson | Getty Images
Republican Sen. Mitch McConnell is speaking out against President Donald Trump’s sweeping tariff plans, warning that starting trade wars with U.S. economic partners could force higher costs on American families and businesses.
Trump’s “aggressive proposals leave big, lingering concerns for American industry and workers,” the senator from Kentucky wrote in an op-ed Wednesday in Louisville’s Courier-Journal.
The op-ed is a rare example of a senior Republican in Congress who is willing to publicly criticize the president’s economic strategy.
Trump, who has called tariff his “favorite word,” recently slapped broad import duties on Canada, Mexico and China, plus additional tariffs on steel and aluminum imports.
He delayed the start of tariffs on Mexico and Canada by one month, after the two U.S. allies pledged to boost efforts to police border crossings and drug trafficking. But that pause is set to expire in the first week of March.
In his op-ed, McConnell conceded that “it’s high time for America’s closest neighbors to take the crisis at our border seriously.”
“But no matter our best intentions, tariffs are bad policy,” he wrote.
McConnell also zeroed in on how Trump’s protectionist policies would hurt his fellow Kentuckians.
He pointed to the 75,000 Kentucky farms that sell their crops internationally, as well as the thousands of jobs in the state’s auto industry, which relies on global supply chains.
And then there is bourbon whiskey. In 2023, Bluegrass State distillers produced and aged an estimated 95% of the bourbon sold worldwide, according to an industry group.
The previous year, almost all of the $500 million worth of goods Kentucky exported was bourbon.
“Blanket tariffs make it more expensive to do business in America, driving up costs for consumers across the board,” he wrote.
The 82-year-old stepped down from Senate leadership in November after almost two decades in power. McConnell has been a frequent target of Trump’s ire since the two men fell out after the then-Senate majority leader refused to back Trump’s false claims about his 2020 election loss.
Four years later, McConnell nevertheless endorsed Trump for president.
