The measure would undermine efforts to address ‘extraordinary threats to national security,’ an OMB memo says.
The White House on April 28 warned that President Donald Trump will veto a Senate resolution that seeks to terminate the administration’s global tariffs.
In a statement of policy, the Office of Management and Budget (OMB) said the Trump administration “strongly opposes” a joint resolution led by Sen. Ron Wyden (D-Ore.), Senate Minority Leader Chuck Schumer (D-N.Y.), and several other Democrats—along with Sen. Rand Paul (R-Ky.)—that would suspend the national emergency order issued by Trump in early April that imposed a broad swath of tariffs.
“This resolution would undermine the administration’s efforts to address the unusual and extraordinary threats to national security and economic stability, posed by the conditions reflected in the large and persistent annual U.S. goods trade deficit,” the OMB memo said.
If passed, the resolution “would undermine U.S. national and economic security” and the president “would veto it,” according to the White House. The memo said that Trump is using his power under the International Emergency Economic Powers Act to address threats to the United States.
Congress can override a president’s veto only by a two-thirds vote in both the House and Senate, rather than a simple majority.
The memo went on to say that the emergency declaration and tariffs are meant to address the “lack of reciprocity” between the United States and its trade partners. The situation has created a $1.2 trillion trade deficit annually and provided “artificial advantages” to foreign goods over domestically produced ones, it noted.
Trump would also veto the measure because the emergency order targets the Chinese communist regime’s non-market practices and policies that impact U.S. manufacturing as well as national security, the OMB said.
Paul told a CNN reporter on Monday that there are enough votes to pass the bill and criticized the tariffs as “chicanery” and “dishonesty.” The tariffs and emergency declaration are “just a terrible idea that he’s actually overturning the law with a rule,” Paul said.
