Rand Paul trying to gather the republican opposition to Trump’s tariffs

SThe Enate Republicans had gathered for one of their usual private lunches last Wednesday when Rand Paul caught his attention. While the senators drank dietary sodas and grass sandwiches, Kentucky legislator went through a slide cover with pictures and statistics at the service of a bold proposal: he leaves President Trump’s tariffs.

The arguments in Paul’s presentation, which has not been previously reported, were not a surprise for his audience. One of the most prominent libertarians in Capitol Hill, is a fierce defender of free trade. But his attempt to corner colleagues against Trump’s commercial agenda was seen as a provocation for the president’s nearby allies. “The public feels that free trade has sold us,” Paul said, according to two senators who were present, “but Americans are richer for that.” Stating that free trade agreements have stimulated ascending social mobility, one of its slides said that the middle class has been reduced in recent years just because more people had moved to the upper class.

“Basically, I was saying that everyone became richer during the presidency of Joe Biden,” a senator tells Time.

For some in the room, Paul’s rebellion reflected his deep restlessness about Trump’s protectionism, which has shaken stock markets, shook consumer confidence and tensed United States relations with his allies. Economists now fear The United States goes to a recession. But for many others, it was heresy. Tariffs are not just a Trump fixation, but they were one of their main campaign promises and a basis for their plan to delay manufacturing jobs to the United States. To that end, Paul was asking them to undermine the president, a mission of political suicide given Trump’s control based on the Republican Party.

Among the Republicans of Congress, Paul has been more recalcitrant than most. He refused to support Trump in the 2024 elections. He was the only Republican senator to vote against the government’s financing bill backed by Trump last week. While tariffs are anathema for many Republicans who preach the gospel of unrestricted markets, Paul is one of the only members of the Congress that currently speaks against him. “When the markets fall like this, it is worth listening to” Recently wrote In social networks. Behind the scene, it has been even more aggressive, courting the members of Congress to join their renegade mission.

This makes Paul an anomaly. At a time when the majority of the chosen Republicans are the first believers in the United States or traditional conservatives who doubled the knee, Paul has become a thorn on Trump’s side. “They have very different ideologies,” says Whit Ayres, a veteran strategist of the Republican Party. “Rand Paul is libertarian and Donald Trump is a populist, and they have very different opinions about appropriate policies given those two different ideologies.”

Paul is not the only Republican who goes back to Trump. His partner Kentuckian Mitch McConnell has voted against Some of the president’s cabinet teams, such as Tulsi Gabbard and Robert F. Kennedy, Jr., but is easier for McConnell than the rest; He retires at the end of this term. Other Republican senators who have submerged the fingers of the feet in the opposition have finally accepted under pressure. Senator Joni Ernst and Senator Tom Tillis expressed reservations about Pete Hegseth for the Secretary of Defense. But after an avalanche of harassment and abuse on social networks, combined with the threat From a primary challenger with ELON funds funded by Trump, both voted to send Hegseth to the Pentagon.

Somehow, Pablo has been less obstruction than them. He voted to confirm almost all Trump’s cabinet nominees and rhetorically sought to soften the waters last month. “Some people may have noticed that I resisted an enthusiastic support from Donald Trump during the elections,” Paul wrote In X. “But now, I am surprised by Trump’s cabinet (many of whom would have chosen). The holder did not last long. Since then it has become a vigorous antagonist of Trump’s rigid tariffs on Canada, Mexico and China, which the president insists on galvanizing an American industrial rebirth.

Paul’s office did not respond to a request for comments.

Trump and Paul have an acrimony story. When each one sought the republican presidential nomination in 2016, Trump open One of the first debates ridiculing his rival. “Rand Paul shouldn’t even be at this stage,” he said. “It has one percent in the surveys and how it arrived here, there are too many people up here anyway.” Pablo abandoned Five months later.

The two also have ideological disagreements. Pablo It is an intellectual disciple of the so-called Chicago Economics School, more associated with Milton Friedman, who defends the economic policy of Laissez-Faire. Trump, on the other hand, has introduced a wave of national populism, with protectionist policies such as a pillar of his economic agenda. He has called the tariffs “the most beautiful word in the dictionary.”

Tariffs may not be so loved by all Republicans, but Trump has gathered a right -wing coalition by joining his commercial position to a classic friendly program for businesses to cut taxes and regulations. The mass movement that leads has also effectively captured the Republican party, which works in service. In the other chamber of the Capitol, the Chamber Republicans recently resigned from their own authority when it comes to trade, vote Earlier this month, to block its ability to challenge the levies imposed by the President.