Jonah Goldberg says: "Trump Mexico tariff threat could 'scuttle' planned replacement of NAFTA"

The Trump administration negotiated with Canadian and Mexican officials in hopes of replacing NAFTA with the USMCA.

"At this very moment, President Trump actually has no serious trade agreements signed - there's one thing with South Korea," Goldberg said. "But he has this basically rehashing of NAFTA that is on the books coming up and it looks like [the tariff threat] could scuttle it."

"Meanwhile we are trying to do these trade negotiations with China, which is the other trading partner that makes lots of cheap stuff."

We reported to you this morning that Trump said that it would be ‘foolish’ for Republicans to try and block his new tariffs on Mexico. But it looks like Senate Republicans are intent on doing just that if Trump goes through with them next week:

DC EXAMINER – The Trump administration is headed for a standoff with congressional Republicans if the president follows through on a threat to impose a 5% tariff on Mexican imports next week.

Senate Republicans Tuesday told a group of administration officials in a private lunch in the Capitol that they could vote for a resolution that would block the tariffs if they are imposed under President Trump’s use of the National Emergencies Act.

The GOP told the White House officials there could be enough Republican disapproval of the tariffs to provide a veto-proof majority on legislation that would prevent him from using the act to justify the tariffs.

“I made that point,” Sen. Ron Johnson, R-Wis., said as he left the meeting. “If I were the White House I would be concerned.”

Republican leaders Tuesday acknowledged it would be difficult to prevent Republicans from voting en mass for a resolution of disapproval that would prevent Trump from using the National Emergencies Act to impose tariffs.

“It’s a hard sell,” Senate Majority Whip John Thune, R-S.D., said. “There are a lot of concerns among our Republican senators about what the potential impact of tariffs could be on the economy generally and specifically in farm country on our farmers who send our products to Mexico.”

Getting a veto-proof majority would be huge, and I suspect they could swing it in both the House and the Senate.

Even McConnell suggests that there isn’t much love for tariffs among Senate Republicans:

“There is not much support in my conference for tariffs, that’s for sure,” Majority Leader Mitch McConnell, R-Ky., said. “I think I can safely say most of us hope the Mexican delegation that has come up here to discuss the challenges at the border, and what Mexico might do to help us more at the border, might be fruitful and that these tariffs won’t happen.”

It would be a big rebuke of Trump if the Senate and House voted to block his new tariffs with veto-proof majorities. That would certainly create a dynamic we haven’t seen before.

If you recall, the last time they tried to block Trump using the National Emergency Act, there wasn’t enough votes to get past Trump’s veto.