Protecting Americans from Tax Hikes on Imported Goods Act of 2025

Mr. President, I want to talk for a few moments about income tax filing season. I realize the Presiding Officer would probably prefer to be condemned to hearing O.J. jokes for the rest of eternity than to hear me talk about Federal income tax filing, but it is important for Americans and my people back in Louisiana because we have a new deduction for people who have uninsured losses from natural disasters. It is really important in my State because many of my people have suffered damages, for which they did not receive insurance payments, from Hurricanes Laura, Delta, Ida, and Francine.

We passed this new deduction in December. It is called the Federal Disaster Tax Relief Act. What it does is the following: It changes the law. It now says that if you are a victim of a natural disaster like a hurricane and you have a loss that is not paid for by your insurance, you can now deduct off your income tax dollar for dollar any uninsured property damage in excess of $500.

Why is that important? Well, under the old rules, you were limited in your

deduction. You could only deduct your uninsured property losses that were in excess of 10 percent of your adjusted gross income. I know that sounds complicated, and it is kind of complicated. But rather than belaboring the point, the bottom line is this: As a result of this bill that we all worked on and we passed, you can now deduct more, and this is the first time people will be able to do this.

Let me say it again. If you had an uninsured property loss, you can now deduct any of that loss above $500. This also applies in addition to the standard deduction. So if you take the standard deduction, as most Americans do, you can take this additional deduction on top of it.

I would also like to point out to all Americans but especially my people back home in Louisiana that this tax deduction is retroactive. It goes all the way back to 2020. So that means that going back to 2020, if you had uninsured losses, you can now deduct them if they exceed $500.

I know folks are thinking, well, I already filed my income taxes for 2021 and 2022 and 2023. You can file an amended return. It is very simple to do. You just file an amended return that says: There has been a change in the law, and I am entitled to have this higher deduction, and therefore the Federal Government owes me money, and therefore please send me my check.

So I wanted to make sure that Americans knew about this new tax provision we passed.

Inflation

Mr. President, the second thing I want to talk about is a subject that some people want to avoid, but I don't, and the American people don't. It is on the minds of every American. That is high prices. I know there are other issues that are important that we are talking about: male athletes in women's sports--that is important; immigration--that is important; national security--we are talking about that, and that is important; the Middle East; Ukraine. I could go on. But the single most important issue that moms and dads worry about in America today when they lie down to sleep at night and can't is inflation, high prices.

I don't want to dwell on the past, but President Biden's administration was an inflation machine. We saw inflation get as high at one point as 10 percent. What does that mean? That means that prices were going up every day, every month, at the rate of 10 percent annualized. Bidenomics, in most people's minds, became paying more to live worse. I mean, inflation just was gutting the American people like a fish. It happened because of all this breathtaking amount of money President Biden's administration spent, trillions of dollars--the American Rescue Plan, the CHIPS Act, the Inflation Reduction Act. They injected trillions of dollars into the economy, frankly, as we are finding out now, most of it in wasteful spending that caused too many dollars to chase too few goods. Unless you are master class dumb, you know that every single time, that leads to inflation.

Thanks to the efforts of the Federal Reserve, inflation came down. It went down from 10 percent to--today, it is between 2 and 3 percent, depending on whose numbers you believe. And that is good. I am happy it happened. That is called disinflation.

When inflation goes from 10 percent to 3 percent, that means prices are still rising, but they are just not rising as quickly as they were. And that is a good thing, but it doesn't lower prices. It doesn't mean that we have now lower prices. They just aren't as high as they would have been if we hadn't tried to control inflation. That is called disinflation. Deflation is when prices actually go down. Deflation is when prices actually go down.

What the American people are wondering every single day as they sell blood plasma to go to the grocery store is, when am I going to get some relief from these high prices? And we do need to provide them relief.

I want to talk about three ways that we are in the process of trying to reduce those prices that my Democratic colleagues caused. And I don't mean to pick on all my Democratic colleagues, but as I have said before, I like breakfast food and straight answers. No economist in America believes that this inflation happened as a result of happenstance. It happened because of the breathtaking amount of money that President Biden spent.

There are three things we are doing to try to get these prices down. No. 1, reduce spending. You see it every single day from President Trump. He said he was going to audit Federal spending, and that is exactly what he is doing.

Now, there are some people that are mad. There are people that are very mad at President Trump and Mr. Musk and others for discovering all of this waste. The people that are mad don't seem to be mad at the people who caused the waste; they are mad at the President and Mr. Musk for finding the waste. I find that a little bit ironic.

But the point is that we are trying to reduce spending, and you are going to see it in our reconciliation bill that we are going to pass, as the Presiding Officer knows. You are going to see it in our budget, if we ever pass one. We are trying to reduce spending because our debt is $36 trillion, and it is going up at the rate of $7 million a minute. I have been talking 5 minutes, maybe; it has grown $35 million while I was talking.

So we are trying to reduce government spending to get this debt down but also to reduce high prices. Why does it matter? Because the less money that government spends, the less stimulative government is on the private sector. When government spends money--there is a finite amount of money--when government spends money, it is money that we are spending instead of the private sector to create jobs and to increase wages.

So the first thing we are doing--the new administration and the new Congress--is to try to reduce spending, and if we are successful, that will lower these prices.

No. 2, deregulation. The Federal Government wants to regulate every breath we take--every breath we take.

I wish you could see all of the Federal regulations. If you stacked them right here--if you stack every single Federal regulation right here, you could probably stand on this thing and paint the ceiling. It is just amazing.

Each one of these regulations has a cost. The cost of all of our regulations today is in excess of $2 trillion--not billion, not million--$2 trillion. What does that mean? That means when a business produces a product or it delivers a service and it has to comply with a meaningless, gnarly Federal regulation which costs money, that extra expense is added to the cost of the product of the service.

Duh.

I mean, businesses have to stay in business. They can't eat the cost. So they pass it on. That leads to higher prices.

So the second thing that we are doing--we are working on it every day. It hasn't been talked about a lot. We passed some bills here on the floor of the Senate, but the administration is doing even more. We are deregulating. We are getting rid of all of these excess regulations whose costs are greater than their benefit. I think the President said he has a new rule that if you are in the bureaucracy and you want to promulgate a new rule, you can do it if it is really necessary, but you have to get rid of 10 others. If we do that successfully, that will reduce prices.

So the first thing we are doing is cutting spending to get down these high prices. The second thing we are doing is implementing Federal deregulation. The third thing we are doing--we are working on it as we speak, as you know, Mr. President.

We have to grow this economy. I mentioned the high spending and the debt that has led to higher prices. Think about this. Since 2019, 5 years ago, the American population increased 2 percent. The Federal budget has increased 55 percent--2 percent population increase, Federal spending is up 55 percent. That is just a fact. The numbers are the numbers. I know we have had some inflation. We haven't had 55-percent worth of inflation. That is just a fact.

Every dollar that the Federal Government spends is a dollar that business people don't have to invest. Why is that important? Because they invest; they grow their business; they add more jobs; the business becomes more profitable; and wages rise.

The third way we are attacking these high prices is by trying to stimulate the economy to increase wages so that we actually can grow out of these high prices so that people will have more money to spend when they buy a car or

go to the grocery store. We are not going to do that with tepid GDP growth.

If you go back to 2010--what, 15 years now? America has experienced average gross domestic product growth--that means how much your economy is growing, as you know, Mr. President. Average GDP growth is a little over 2 percent. That is not going to get it. That is not going to get it. In fact, now when we have 2.5 percent GDP growth, we get so excited. We are so happy we want to have a toga party. Well, 2.5 percent is not going to get it. In order to grow out of these high prices and increase wages, we are going to have to increase GDP growth to at least 3 percent. And that used to be normal for America. That used to be very, very doable and very normal.

How are we going to do that? We are going to do that through the Tax Code. We have about $4.5 trillion worth of tax cuts that we implemented back in 2017 that caused the economy to grow and wages to go up until COVID hit. Those tax cuts are expiring here very shortly, and we are going to extend them. If we don't, it will be, in effect, a tax increase by $4.5 trillion. That will send our growth down, not up.

We are also going to change some other provisions of the Tax Code; and in doing so, we are not going to add to our deficit. We are going to match those tax decreases with spending savings so that we do not add to the national debt. That is what we are doing on inflation.

I didn't want this to be lost in translation because of all the other important things we are talking about.

We are well aware that high prices are gutting the American people like a fish. But by reducing spending, by deregulating the economy, and by designing a Tax Code that looks like somebody designed it on purpose, we are going to get those high prices down.

Point 3, I am speaking of saving money. I talked a little bit about public radio and public television in America--the Corporation for Public Broadcasting, NPR, PBS. These are public TV and radio stations. The American people spend about a half billion dollars a year and give it directly to public TV. They give it to the Corporation for Public Broadcasting.

Corporation for Public Broadcasting picks its favorite local TV stations and radio stations, gives money to them, and local TV and radio stations buy programming from NPR and PBS, which is loosely affiliated with Corporation for Public Broadcasting.

There was a time when it was necessary because we only had three TV stations and few radio stations. And people in rural areas depended on the government for the media. Those days are long gone, as we know. We now have a breathtaking array of ways to get information, everything from podcasts to Facebook to Twitter to Google News to cable TV to streaming. We no longer need to spend half a billion dollars a year or half a trillion dollars a year--we spent $14.5 billion since we started funding public radio and television. We no longer need to do it.

I mean, we don't fund CNN. We don't subsidize CNN, and if somebody proposed to, I would vote against it. We don't subsidize FOX News. If somebody introduced a bill to subsidize FOX News, I would vote against it. Why are we subsidizing these radio and television stations? They need to compete with everybody else.

The final point I want to make on this subject, the audience for public radio and public television is declining. Let me say that again. The audience for public radio and public television, which your tax dollars pay for, is declining. Why is that? There are a lot of reasons for it, but I will tell you one. People used to tune into PBS and NPR and Corporation for Public bias--Public Broadcasting--Freudian slip there--because those stations played it right straight down the middle. But they don't anymore. They are very, very biased in their reporting. We all know that. I mean, all you have to do is listen to them.

This is America. You are entitled--I despise opinion journalists, but it is constitutional. On the First Amendment, you can say what you want, within reason. I support that. You are not free if you can't say what you think, so I don't want you to misconstrue what I am saying. These local stations that are getting money from the taxpayers have every right to report what they want. But they don't have a right to do it and offer a jaundiced point of view using taxpayer dollars. That is my point.

I just wanted to, as I have done in the past, I wanted to read a few more headlines. This is the kind of reporting that is being done today with your tax money on NPR, National Public Radio, and PBS. I will start with NPR. Here is one of the headlines of NPR: ``Arguments that trans athletes have an unfair advantage lack evidence to support.''

That is opinion journalism. Here is another headline from NPR: ``A Brief History of How Racism Shaped Interstate Highways.''

I did not know our interstate highways were racists. I thought they were concrete. Not according to NPR.

Here is another NPR headline: ``Trump `Embodies Nearly Every Aspect of a Racist,' Author Says.''

Another: ``The Nation: Confronting Trump's Coded Racism.''

And another: ``Is Trump's Call For `Law And Order' A Coded Racial Message?''

As I said, these are your tax dollars at work.

``Sexism Is Out In The Open In The 2016 Campaign. That May Have Been Inevitable.'' That is another headline.

``Is Trump Really That Racist?'' Another headline.

And another headline: ``FRONTLINE traces the `ambition and revenge' driving SCOTUS Justice Clarence Thomas.'' NPR is reporting that Justice Thomas is motivated by revenge and ambition.

Another headline from NPR: ``What can the White House do to confront the narrative around Biden's ability?''

It wasn't a narrative. I mean, I don't hate anybody, and I am sorry this was the case, but President Biden had neurodegenerative disease. It wasn't a narrative; it was just a fact. I am sorry, but it was just a fact.

Last headline from NPR: ``Scientists Start to Tease Out the Subtler Ways Racism Hurts Health.''

Your tax dollars at work. I don't want to just pick on NPR. Here are a couple which you saw on television, PBS, paid for with your tax dollars. First headline: ``Talking to Young Children About Race and Racism.''

Another headline: ``How America's history of racism connects to divisions today.'' Another headline from PBS: ``The hidden racism of young white Americans.''

Your tax dollars. Another headline: ``AP FACT CHECK: Trump seeds race animus with COVID falsehood.''

Another headline: ``Biden trumpets economic gains, but struggles to get credit.''

Another headline from PBS: `` `The Other Olympians:' Transgender Athletes in the Nazi Era.''

Come on, give me a break. Gag me with a spoon.

The final headline I will read: ``Debunking common myths about gender-affirming care for youth.''

Let me say it again, Mr. President, these television stations and radio stations that are getting money from the Federal Government--your tax dollars--they have every right under the First Amendment to say these things. They do and I support the First Amendment. But they don't have an inalienable right to report these things using opinion journalism that no fair-minded American can construe as anything but representing one point of view with your tax dollars. I am going to try to stop subsidizing media, not just PBS and not just NPR but any form of media that somehow is getting Federal taxpayer dollars. It is just not right. It is not fair. I have a bill to do that. We are also going to pursue it through reconciliation. I think President Trump and Mr. Musk are going to pursue it on their own, and I think that is a very good thing.

With that, I suggest the absence of a quorum.

Mr. President, tragically and totally unnecessarily, what we are seeing in real time is an assault on the veterans of America. It is an assault that is part of a campaign by Elon Musk, who has been empowered by President Trump supposedly to eliminate waste in our Federal Government.

Instead of eliminating waste, Elon Musk is laying waste to the Department of Veterans Affairs, and it is unfolding in real time, with real-life impacts on our veterans. Not only is he firing veterans at the VA--many of the 2,400 already terminated are veterans, one-third of them--but across Agencies in the U.S. Government, where 30,000 members of the Federal workforce have been indiscriminately terminated. Thirty percent of them are veterans as well.

Almost 50 percent of everybody in the Department of Defense who has been fired are veterans, and they may be probationary employees who have been promoted to positions where they are in probationary status because they have done such a great job. They are being fired.

Younger members of the Federal workforce--there for up to 2 years, the future of our civil service--they are firing, and so many of them are veterans who have worn the uniform, served and sacrificed, and want to continue to benefit the country with the skills and dedication they have demonstrated as members of our U.S. Armed Forces.

Public service has long been a preferred path for military-affiliated populations. Whether it is in our local police force or as emergency medical personnel, joining the Federal workforce has enabled them to continue serving our country while it offers competitive wages, benefits, and much needed stability for them as veterans and tremendous benefits for taxpayers.

Now what Elon Musk is doing--relying on his tech bros and his algorithms and his AI formulas--is to cut across the board, leaving those veterans as disposable trash or roadkill in his campaign to eliminate waste.

Well, let me tell you, Elon Musk, if you were serious about eliminating waste, you wouldn't have fired the inspectors general of these Agencies, who are the watchdogs. They have records of eliminating waste, fraud, and abuse.

Exhibit A is Michael Missal, the inspector general of the VA, hired and appointed first by President Obama. He served under President Trump for 4 years and then under President Biden. He has ruffled feathers of Republican and Democrat administrations because he has uncovered waste and fraud in a very bipartisan way, and he regards his job as bipartisan. He would be the one to eliminate waste, not with a meat-ax but with a scalpel.

I wish my colleagues had been in the hearing today, the joint hearing of the House and Senate Veterans' Affairs Committees, to hear Commander Al Lipphardt of the Veterans of Foreign Wars, the VFW--a really heroic Vietnam veteran, injured there, with shrapnel in his arm. As he told us, the surgeon removed the shrapnel piece by piece; he didn't cut off his arm. That is the approach that we need, as he said, in eliminating waste--not cutting off arms or legs but removing the waste carefully, deliberately, cautiously.

Among the illegally terminated--and I should stress ``illegally terminated''--are 2,400 VA employees, many of them veterans themselves, members of the Guard or Reserves now, caregivers, military spouses. In the DOD, many of them--45 percent--are former veterans. The overall impact will be disastrous on the 640,000 veterans who are public servants.

Musk and Trump have already upended the lives of so many thousands of veterans who were casually discarded, illegally fired without notice or justification--all for cheap headlines. The impacts in real life are undeniable. Stories from newspapers, from broadcast media, from all kinds of outlets, tell the story of those real-life impacts.

I know my colleagues are hearing from their constituents about the mental health services that are delayed, about the surgeries that can't be provided, and about the Veterans Crisis Line, serving veterans who may be taking their own lives--all reduced. These real-life impacts are undeniable. We are talking about the people who make sure that veterans have transportation to those appointments, who assist with benefits claims, who ensure that the VA hospitals are maintained and that they are safe, who clean operating rooms and sterilize instruments in between procedures. It may not be the surgeon who is fired, but the surgeon who is walking into the operating room needs a staff and a team to assist him. He needs the housekeeping staff to make sure that it is clean. These people have dedicated their careers to serving veterans and their Nation, and all have been indiscriminately and illegally terminated.

These short headlines tell a story, and so does this visual from Springfield, MA:

Due to abrupt and unplanned staff shortages, we are not

able to greet you at this time. If you have a scheduled

appointment, your counselor will be out to get you at the

time of your appointment. If you are here for any other

reason, please call and leave a message, and a staff member

will return your call.

We apologize--

``We apologize''--

for any inconvenience and impact on your care.

Donald Trump and Elon Musk owe veterans an apology. Right now, Elon Musk is giving veterans the middle finger. Veterans won't stand for it.

So, Mr. President, I am introducing a resolution today and asking that we approve it to uphold the contract, to uphold the promise, to uphold the commitment we made to our veterans when they raised their right hands and promised to serve and sacrifice even at the risk of dying.

I am joined by Senators Hirono, Slotkin, Lujan, Murray, Durbin, Whitehouse, Warnock, Klobuchar, Shaheen, Kaine, Rosen, Cortez Masto, Alsobrooks, Kelly, Warren, Hassan, Schiff, Baldwin, Duckworth, Gallego, Peters, Van Hollen, Sanders, Booker, Wyden, Merkley, Warner, Smith, Padilla, Heinrich, Schatz, and Hickenlooper in this effort. I wish--I really wish--it were bipartisan because veterans' issues have been bipartisan. I have worked with veterans, including the chairman, whom I respect, Senator Moran, on these issues.

This resolution acknowledges that veterans, who make up less than 7 percent of Americans but approximately 30 percent of public service, have been really disrespected and disserved in just these weeks, with such destructive and repugnant effects on them, on the veterans they serve, and on American values. Our Nation and they deserve better.

I ask unanimous consent that the Senate proceed to the consideration of S. Res. 105, which is at the desk; further, that the resolution be agreed to, the preamble be agreed to, and that the motions to reconsider be considered made and laid upon the table with no intervening action or debate.

Mr. President, first, let me say I am hopeful that we can work together--if the chairman of the VA Committee is willing to do it--to try to arrive at language that calls for the rehiring of these veterans, rescinding the layoffs.

I must say that we are joined today by a number of guests of my colleagues as well as myself, veterans who have been terminated. They are with us today. They are going to be with us tonight at the address offered by President Trump.

I am more than happy to work on this resolution if there is a way to make it bipartisan, but the basic principle that we owe our veterans that contract and commitment and that we need to bring them back so that these kinds of consequences can be avoided I think is fundamental to the effort today.

We know that more than 50 patient appointments were canceled at a VA facility just this past week because they can't hire staff needed to care for those veterans.

We know that in the first round of terminations, Secretary Collins terminated nine Veterans Crisis Line employees. Then he hired some back, and then he fired more.

We know that a pregnant spouse of a disabled veteran who was hired under the military spouse appointing authority was terminated.

We know that a 25-year Marine Corps veteran with a 100-percent service-connected disability rating and 15 years of service was terminated.

We know that a VA researcher working on treatments for substance use disorders among veterans was terminated.

We know that the cyber security lead for the VA website--the digital hub that connects veterans with their benefits and holds sensitive, personal data--was terminated.

These kinds of impacts--and I have mentioned just a tiny fraction of all of them--are ongoing. They are real. They are urgent.

I am more than happy to work on the language of this resolution, but the goal is indisputable and unavoidable.

I am going to turn now to some of my colleagues who have joined me today. I thank them for doing so.

First, Senator Whitehouse, if I may yield to him.

Mr. President, we are going to be joined by others of my colleagues, but I want to follow Senator Whitehouse's very eloquent remarks by just making a couple of quick points.

You know, tonight, the President is going to speak to Members of both the House and the Senate, and he is going to make a lot of claims, many of them untethered in any way to the facts. But if he does nothing else, what I would like to see him do is show some respect for our veterans. He has called them suckers and losers. They have been called swamp creatures or deep-staters by members of this administration. Part of the mindset here that is responsible for these firings is that disrespect for our veterans.

Two of my sons are veterans--one, a Marine Corps first lieutenant who served in Afghanistan; another, a Navy SEAL. They value the VA.

Americans see in their real lives how the VA helps our veterans.

When the President speaks tonight, I want him to look at the guests whom we have brought--not only my guest, Michael Missal, the former inspector general of the VA, but also a U.S. Air Force veteran with more than 30 years of military service who retired from a lifetime of dedicated service to his country in November and immediately rededicated himself to serving his fellow veterans at the Department of Veterans Affairs. He started work on January 13. He was illegally terminated barely 1 month later. He is the soul breadwinner of his family. And Tony Ruiz, a disabled Army veteran--until he was illegally terminated, he worked at the VA Benefits Administration to assist veterans with their benefits claim. He was cut just 10 days before his probationary period ended. He was serving in his dream job.

These veterans and other courageous former members of our Armed Forces are going to be with us tonight, and they will be speaking out. They will be sharing their stories. They are not faceless bureaucrats. They are not suckers. They are not losers. They are hard-working public servants who have willingly sacrificed everything for this country, have been willing to give even their lives, and now have rededicated themselves to continue their service now that their military time is complete.

I want to yield to my colleague from Michigan, Senator Peters, who himself is a veteran and a great colleague and friend of ours.

Mr. President, I am going to close this colloquy by, first of all, thanking my colleagues who have come today, especially veterans like Senator Kelly, who served for decades, and Senator Peters and all the veterans who have joined in this resolution--Senators Gallego and others who have served this country--Senator Slotkin, Senator Peters, who was here, and others.

But we don't have to be veterans to appreciate what members of our military do for our country. My own service in the U.S. Marine Corps Reserve pales in comparison to many of theirs and many who have appeared before the Veterans' Committee over these past 7, 10 days, many of them decrying these kinds of cuts. Again, these are real people, affected in real ways, unnecessarily harmed.

And these headlines speak volumes about how they have been hurt:

DOGE finds zero fraud, waste, or abuse, just new ways to

harm veterans.

Veterans fired in federal layoffs say they were ``stabbed

in the back.''

These are just a scattering of the kinds of real-life stories that bring us to the floor today.

I plead with the President: Please make this resolution unnecessary. Do the right thing. But if you don't, I ask my colleagues on the other side of the aisle: Join us from that other side of the aisle; join us in decrying these cuts, the freezes, the firings, the terminations. They are illegal and immoral.

And we will move forward. We will continue to fight because American values are at stake.

I yield the floor.

Madam President, I come to the floor today because I am concerned about President Trump's actions to, I believe, start a trade war with our top two trading partners, Canada and Mexico.

All goods coming from Canada and Mexico, as of midnight last night--I guess midnight today--face a 25-percent tax; that is, all except Canadian energy, which is taxed at 10 percent. Trump's tariffs will make everything from gas to heating, to groceries, to lumber and more, more expensive for everyday Americans.

I think it bears repeating that tariffs are paid by consumers. They are paid by Americans, not by other countries. And what the President is doing amounts to a new tax for Americans. For example, heating oil and propane that keeps hundreds of thousands of Granite Staters warm in the winter is going to cost more. We are going to add about $150 to $250 to the cost of heating homes in New Hampshire.

And gas prices are going to go up. In New Hampshire, half of the fuel in our cars and trucks comes from Canada, and U.S. refineries across the Midwest use Canadian oil.

The United States imports 80 percent of its potash fertilizer from Canada, and this tariff makes farming and food more expensive.

It is unclear how the American auto industry is going to continue to operate. Ford's CEO said these tariffs will ``blow a hole in the U.S. industry that we have never seen,'' with up to $12,000 added to the cost of a car.

And this will make lumber and electrical equipment that we need to build housing--at a time when housing is already in short supply--it will make them more expensive and harder to find.

Those are just a few examples.

There are countless other imports that American businesses and families rely on that are going to be hit hard, and these tariffs do nothing to bring down those costs. They do just the opposite.

These tariffs could add $1,200 to an average household's yearly cost, and we won't have to wait very long for the impact to be felt. It is already being felt on Wall Street and the stock market. Target's CEO said this morning that the consumer ``will likely see price increases over the next couple of days.'' And for small businesses, these tariff taxes will be felt by small businesses in all of our States.

I was here, a month ago today, sharing stories from businessowners in New Hampshire who weren't sure how they were going to keep operating if specialized machinery that they can only get from Canada suddenly costs 25 percent more. Since that time, I have heard from even more people in New Hampshire, more small businesses.

Last week, I heard from a small company in Windham, NH, that makes allergen-free cookies, and they can only get certain ingredients for those cookies from Canada. The CEO built her business, which now employs 30 people, and now she can't be sure if they are even going to be able to keep going, let alone keep growing.

When I spoke with business representatives across New Hampshire last month, the theme they kept coming back to was ``uncertainty.'' As a former small businessowner, I know that uncertainty is the most destabilizing aspect of running and growing a business. Yet that is what this administration keeps creating.

Yesterday, we learned that new orders from manufacturers dropped in February for the first time in 22 years. For the first time in 22 years, new orders from manufacturers dropped because companies can't work with this level of uncertainty.

Last Wednesday, the President was talking about Canadian tariffs going into effect April 2. The very next morning, he announced 25 percent tariffs would go into effect today. The whiplash is hard to imagine.

I spoke, last month, about a bus company, C&J Bus Lines, in New Hampshire that was worried about these tariffs and what it would mean for the bottom line. Well, the CEO moved up his delivery date to get three buses in late March before these taxes were set to go into effect, but his costs just went up more than $450,000.

Businesses plan months, quarters, or years in advance. They need to place orders and plot out their growth in order to succeed. How can they plan when they can't even know whether their costs are going to go up 25 percent overnight? How can a developer know if they can start building the housing that New Hampshire desperately needs if their lumber costs 25 percent more overnight? And how can a family already struggling with high costs continue to pay the rent or put food on the table if their household costs are going to go up $1,200 this year?

I want families and businesses to know that the whims of this President are not going to cause them to break the bank on everyday items they need to get by. That is why I introduced the Protecting Americans from Tax Hikes on Imported Goods Act. It is a simple change, really. It says that the International Emergency Economic Powers Act, or IEEPA, can no longer be used to place taxes on imports.

If the President needs to block some dangerous product, he still can. But if there is a real threat, we would want to stop it, not just add a tariff tax. That is what my bill does. It would stop these tariffs on goods and energy coming from Canada and Mexico, and it would give businesses and families more certainty to plan for the future and to keep their hard-earned dollars in their pockets.

Madam President, I ask unanimous consent that the Committee on Banking, Housing, and Urban Affairs be discharged from further consideration of S. 151 and that the Senate proceed to its immediate consideration; that the bill be considered read a third time and passed; and that the motion to reconsider be considered made and laid upon the table.

Madam President, I know that my colleague from Oregon wants to speak to this issue, but I just want to respond in a couple of ways.

I know my colleague from South Carolina cares about the issues that I am going to address, but he mentioned fentanyl, and that is what the President has used to justify the tariffs. He

says this is a way to stop the flow of fentanyl into our country, but he has forgotten a few inconvenient facts.

First, it is that, in 2024, CBP, or Customs and Border Protection, seized about 43 pounds of fentanyl along our northern border--about 1 percent of the fentanyl coming into this country. Now, it has long been known that fentanyl is not coming from Canada, and that hard drugs and firearms flow north from the United States into Canada.

In fact, on February 25, the Canada Border Services Agency announced the seizure of 410 pounds of methamphetamine and 42 pounds of cocaine from two commercial trucks seeking entry into Canada at the Coutts port of entry. Seizures like this are not uncommon. Wouldn't it make more sense if we agreed to work together with our Canadian allies instead of putting a tariff on them?

The second fact that bears mentioning is that the vast majority of the fentanyl crossing the southwest border is transported by Americans, hidden in their cars and trucks. That is why I have supported--like most of my colleagues in this body have supported--more money for technology and personnel to better find these drugs before they enter the United States. That is why I supported the border bill last year that this President stopped because he wanted a political issue.

On China, we can debate another time whether this is actually the right long-term strategy with China. But more important than that, my bill does not prevent tariffs against countries like China that have unfair trade practices. Both President Trump, in his first term, and President Biden have already placed tariffs on numerous imports from China to respond to its unfair trade practices, exactly what section 301 of the Trade Act is for. That tool remains available.

My bill only addresses the ability of the President to tax imports on a whim. And I want to note that, thanks to this President, we now have higher taxes on imports from Canada than from China. I don't know how that makes sense--that we are taxing our allies more than we are taxing our adversaries.

So I would say: Is this really about China, or is a more important motivation here to raise costs on American families to pay for tax cuts for the wealthy?

As the ranking member of the Foreign Relations Committee, I take very seriously our ability to use sanctions or other tools in foreign policy. This bill does nothing to limit the use of sanctions under IEEPA, nor does it prevent an embargo or fully blocking dangerous imports.

But I don't think a tax is the right solution for those issues. In fact, this is breaking the U.S.-Mexico-Canada Agreement that President Trump negotiated just 6 years ago. And if we are going to break the very deal we have negotiated--I think, one of the most important achievements of the first Trump administration--why would people want to work with us in the future? Why would they want to work with a Trump administration? How does being an unreliable partner to our closest allies help our national security?

I think it is important to be clear on this: Donald Trump's trade war doesn't create any manufacturing jobs tomorrow in the United States. In fact, it is far more likely to cost us tens or hundreds of thousands of jobs. Half of the goods that America imports are intermediate components, that means parts that our companies manufacture into finished goods. Every one of those items coming from Canada or Mexico just got 25 percent more expensive.

And we have already heard from automakers. They are not sure how much this is going to add to the bottom line of cars. I think that is a lot of risk for tariffs that President Trump can't justify for any other reason, other than because he wants to get funding to support a tax cut for the wealthiest Americans.

Yet the President is talking about wanting to cut deals with Russia for economic development. I don't see the logic in going half way around the world to deal with a dictator--a murderous dictator, by the way--like Vladimir Putin. At the same time, we are damaging relationships and cutting off trade with our closest allies right here in North America.

I am happy to listen to somebody's explanation here, but I don't think it makes sense, and it seems entirely contrary to American values to me. So I hope that my colleagues on the other side of the aisle will see the folly in what the President is doing, will recognize the impact on the economy and American families because of these increased costs, and agree that these tariffs should be rolled back.

I yield the floor.

Mr. President, like my colleague from New Hampshire, I want to make a statement after, but I want to, at the moment, accommodate the scheduling requirements of some of my other colleagues. So I want to make a unanimous consent motion.

As if in legislative session and notwithstanding rule XXII, I ask unanimous consent that the Committee on Finance be discharged and the Senate proceed to the immediate consideration of S. 2383; that the bill be considered read a third time and passed and that the motion to reconsider be considered made and laid upon the table.

Mr. President, these tariffs are terrible. No. 1, let's be clear, they are a tax. So every tariff is going to be paid for by every consumer in this country, and it is going to be an expense for every business in this country. That is No. 1.

No. 2, these tariffs are totally chaotic in creating an immense amount of uncertainty so that businesses don't know what is the tariff from one day to the next. The least desirable situation for any of our businesses is when there is total uncertainty about what governmental policy is.

The challenges to our consumers and to our businesses are universal. Every consumer in every State, every business in every State faces the threat of these higher expenses that go to consumers in this incredible uncertainty that is inflicted on businesses.

But my legislation, the Creating Access to Necessary American- Canadian Duty Adjustments Act, the CANADA Act, cosponsored by Leader Schumer, by my colleague Senator Shaheen, Senator Murkowski of Alaska, Senator Kaine, Senator Collins, Senator Markey, and Senator Wyden, focuses special attention on our small businesses.

The reason for that is as challenging as this is for every business, it is especially so for small businesses. They do not have the margin to deal with these price swings. They don't have the margin to adjust to the Monday-Tuesday-Wednesday policy changes. They don't have the margin to be able to absorb a huge hit in their expenses on the basis of whether a shipment that they were awaiting from another country was delivered on Monday or Friday.

That literally is what is happening.

Our small businesses are so profoundly important to us in Vermont-- and I know that is true in West Virginia, I know it is true in New Hampshire--and we have got to be doing things that help them. We should not be doing something that really hurts them. That is these tariffs.

The impact to us in Vermont is especially acute in our proximity to Canada. Canada is Vermont's major trading partner, but Vermont is hardly unique. Thirty-four States in our country have as their major trading partner Canada.

So we have got to level with the American people--the people we represent. The President is suggesting that these tariffs are nothing but pure revenue for our country. You know what, it is revenue for our country, but it is revenue that is paid for by our consumers and by our businesses.

As Senator Shaheen has so eloquently stated, we have got a serious affordability crisis in this country. People who work hard, who work full time, cannot afford to pay their bills at the end of the month. Our businesses that are operating with enormous efficiency and who are super concerned

about the price consciousness of consumers and are doing everything they can to keep their prices down but have enough of a profit to keep the lights on, to keep people employed--they are overwhelmed by what is happening with these tariffs and how it is inflicting uncertainty and causing them to have layoffs.

You know what, those small businesses do not have the pricing power that our major businesses have. They can deal with it. They have got market power. And I am actually on their side because I don't think they should be subject to these horrible tariffs, but what I do have some appreciation for is the fact that the small businesses just don't have that margin no matter how hard they work, no matter how carefully they plan, no matter how committed their workforce is. If you have this tariff that creates a tsunami of uncertainty and expense, that jeopardizes their ability to hang on.

Let me go through some of the effects on Vermonters that I spoke to. All of us, like Senator Shaheen, visited businesses, talked to real people. Here is what I am hearing in Vermont:

Farmers: They are having to pay already 25 percent more for fertilizer. By the way, that is not unique to Vermont. That is all over the country. Our dairy farmers, small margin. How do you tell them to pay 25 percent more? And on August 1, by the way, it can go up to 35 percent.

Our maple producers: We import a lot of maple syrup from Canada. We produce the most maple syrup in the United States of any State, but we cooperate with them, and it is going to create a distortion of the market and put a lot of pressure on our maple producers.

Housing: As Senator Shaheen said, we get lumber from Canada. Housing is incredibly expensive. We all know that. It is true in your State, and it is true in mine. It is one of the big threats to people having an opportunity to move into the middle class. They can't afford a house.

These tariffs are sticking it to our folks in housing. The National Association of Home Builders is absolutely opposed to these tariffs, and rightly so, because an already expensive house now is going to have a 25- to 35-percent increase in the cost of lumber. I mean, where is that coming from? How is that fair? How does that make any sense for everyday, hard-working people in Vermont and in every State?

We are losing jobs from these. Steel and car manufacturers are having layoffs. They are in Michigan. They are in Indiana. They are in Alabama. They are in Minnesota.

In my State, Orvis, which is an iconic producer of elegant and exceptional fly rods, has had to lay off workers for the first time in a very, very long time, and it is all totally as a result of these tariffs.

You know, small business--I know we all believe this--is the backbone of our States, and every single one of us on both sides of the aisle, I think, sincerely believes that. But is it really a belief when we give lip service but not action to protect their opportunity to compete? And these tariffs are a killer for them. There is not a small business you can talk to that supports these tariffs and doesn't see it as an existential threat to their well-being.

You know, the President, on these tariffs particularly with Canada-- we had the United States-Canada-Mexico Trade Agreement, and that was negotiated by President Trump. He, in his Trumpian way, bragged about that as the best deal ever, and now he is ripping it up.

So what was it, the best deal ever? It actually was working. It gave stability. We had a market from Mexico up through Canada, and now that is getting ripped apart with these arbitrary actions on the part of the administration.

So it is all downside here. You know, there is a lot of press recently about the President getting a deal here and a deal there. And in the short-term news cycle, that is regarded as a victory. But you know what, when you step back and look at what the deals are, it is a deal to raise the cost to folks in West Virginia; it is to raise the cost to folks in Vermont, raise the cost for folks in Oregon, raise the cost for folks in New Hampshire.

I ask the obvious question: How is that a good deal?

Maybe it is a good deal, politically, for the President, but it is a really bad deal for our small businesses and for our consumers.

The other part of this, particularly with Canada--huge tourism industry. About 20 million Canadians come to the United States, about $20 billion. The folks from Canada--we, in Vermont, in New Hampshire, feel very close to them. We feel a social, economic, political connection to them. We really value them, and this has been such an insult to them.

I mean, aside from the tariffs, to talk about the 51st State to the Governor of Canada, that is all really uncalled for and very hurtful and very harmful.

Senator Shaheen and Senator Wyden both led delegations to Canada where I think they were, on behalf of all of us, expressing the appreciation and respect we have for our Canadian neighbors. We should not be doing something with these tariffs that shows massive disrespect to them.

I just want to end with a few quotes from the Vermonters I spoke to. By the way, these are Republicans; these are Democrats and Independents. This is not a deal that relates to whose side you are on in the Presidential contest. These are folks committed to the community they live in, committed to the employees who work for them, and care about a strong economy and a strong social life for us in Vermont.

Our treasurer said: Small local businesses will be hit very hard. They don't have the ability to find a different supplier and different vendors with the limited flexibility they already have.

We had another, a vegetable farmer, small scale: It feels like death by a thousand cuts.

Person in healthcare: Adding a tariff will either lead to drug shortages in the short term or long-term significant price increases.

So there is a commonsense element here that just seems to escape the U.S. Senate at times. We are actually pretending that this tariff is not a tax. It is a tax. We are pretending that the constant change and whimsical nature, the arbitrary nature with which the radius of one thing today and a different thing tomorrow doesn't have a really disastrous impact on folks who have to make real-world decisions about their ability to produce a product to meet the obligations of a contract they have entered into, to maintain the stability of their workforce and their supply chain.

It is all downside with these tariffs, and these are not targeted. You know, it is a separate question to use a tariff when you have got unfair labor or trade practices as we have from China. I think all of us here are quite open to the proper and limited use of tariffs as a tool. But this notion that tariffs as a revenue source and pretending that revenue is not being paid for by our businesses and by our consumers is wrong. It is just flatout wrong.

As this policy gets implemented, we are going to lock in these price increases and further aggravate the affordability challenges that everyday, hard-working Americans are feeling more acutely than ever.

I yield the floor.

Mr. President, on Friday, we may be facing the next escalation in the President's trade war. The tariffs that the President announced in April on virtually every country in the world are set to go into full effect tomorrow night at 12:01 a.m. Those tariffs are expected to add about $2,400 in costs for the average household per year.

That is why I introduced the Protecting Americans from Tax Hikes on Imported Goods Act. This bill states clearly that the International Emergency Economic Powers Act cannot be used to place taxes on imports. If the President needs to block a dangerous product, he still can under my legislation. But if there is a real threat, I think we would want to stop it, not just tax it. That is what my bill does. It makes clear what the Federal court has already found: that IEEPA, the International Emergency Economic Powers Act, does not authorize tariffs.

Passing my bill would give businesses and families more certainty to plan for the future and to keep more of their hard-earned dollars in their pockets.

Virtually every business in New Hampshire that I visited since the President announced his proposed tariffs has said that, in addition to the tariffs, the uncertainty is as difficult for them as the tariffs.

So I am disappointed that Senator Crapo decided to block this commonsense legislation. Sadly, I am not surprised. But this bill would do so much to help families and businesses in all of our States. It would shield them from higher costs.

We have been hearing about some of these deals that Senator Crapo referred to that have been reached with the EU and Japan, but let's be clear about what those deals mean because even after those deals--those agreements, trade agreements--Americans are going to be left paying dramatically higher tariffs.

A new analysis this week found that we will be paying the highest tariffs since the Great Depression, and we saw what those tariffs before the Great Depression contributed to.

Now, we just saw a deal announced with the EU by the President and Ursula von der Leyen, the head of the European Commission, forcing 15 percent taxes on imports. Now, compare that to what we were paying in 2024 at this same time. That was about 1.5 percent. So under this great deal that the President negotiated with the EU, Americans are going to be paying 10 times what we paid last year. And with Japan, President Trump agreed to a 15-percent tax. That is also 10 times what we were paying last year.

So let's don't pretend that these are some big wins. The President can announce that, but they are only a slight improvement on a crisis that the President created himself.

At a time when people are rightly worried about the rising costs of living, Trump's tariffs amount to a tax to make everything from clothes, to housing, to food even more expensive. For example, last month, home prices hit a record high, and these tariffs could add more than $10,000 to the cost of a home. Coffee prices hit a record high earlier this year, and now President Trump wants to put a 50-percent tariff on Brazil--our largest source of coffee. As families do their back-to-school shopping, they are going to see higher prices for clothing and shoes. Those prices could go up by 35 percent by the end of the year. For new parents, just for example, the price of one stroller at Walmart went up 50 percent in 2 months. And there are countless more products that are facing higher prices.

So let's be clear: These tariffs do nothing to bring down costs, and, in fact, they could add, as I said earlier in this statement, about $2,400 to the average household's yearly expenses. That is money that most families don't have just lying around.

We have all of those costs from these tariffs, and yet, at this moment, 30 hours from when the tariffs will go into effect, we still have seen no official notice implementing any of these deals.

That includes, by the way, no clarity on whether prescription drugs coming from Europe will face a 15-percent tariff starting in 2 days. I had a chance to meet with a pharmaceutical company this week, and they were lamenting what the impact was going to be on prescription drug prices because of the tariffs from the EU.

Last Friday, I visited the Brueckner Group in New Hampshire. They supply equipment to domestic manufacturers and import some of their specialized machines, which they make, from Europe. The machines they bring in are sold to manufacturers here in the United States to make everything from IV bags to toothpaste containers. They have 80 employees in the United States, and far more work on their machines at other companies across the country.

They saw orders put on hold in April, and further investments in the United States are delayed because they can't be certain what the tariffs are going to be that they might face.

They told me that even worse than the tariffs in some way is the uncertainty that has been created, the chaos that has been created by President Trump's announcements because people don't know how to plan, businesses don't know what to invest in.

I believe in supporting domestic manufacturing. It is New Hampshire's third largest industry. But half of all imports are raw materials and intermediate goods--the very things that domestic manufacturers rely on.

Instead of supporting domestic manufacturing, these trade policies are making future American manufacturing more expensive. Furthermore, they are threatening jobs.

My husband and I started out our married life owning and operating a small business. I know the hardest part of small businesses is growing and sustaining those businesses when you are uncertain about what is going to happen, and that is what these tariffs create, as I heard at Brueckner Group USA and as I have heard at every business I visited.

When I visited Brueckner 4 days ago, we had a 10-percent tax on everything imported from the EU, and at the time, that was set to jump to 30 percent this Friday. Then, Sunday, we saw an agreement to set the tax at 15 percent but with unclear exceptions to that tax, like, as I heard from the pharmaceutical company, with prescription drugs.

I also heard from Flight Coffee roasters in Bedford, NH. They are worried about the President's threat to place new tariffs on Brazil because they have already been paying a 10-percent markup on coffee because of these tariffs. Now they are facing a 50-percent tax on Brazilian coffee starting on Friday, and they have no choice but to charge consumers more. Their most popular product comes from Brazil. So this is a big hit to their business, and they can't be sure how this is going to impact their sales.

We should be clear: The United States has a trade surplus with Brazil. This threat is just because the President wants Brazil's independent judiciary to stop the prosecution of Brazil's former President.

How is any business supposed to plan for that kind of rationale and for those kinds of swings? They need to secure financing. They need to place orders. They need to invest in order to grow in the months and years ahead, but building a new plant and moving production takes time. In some cases, it takes years. So how can companies plan when they don't even know whether the Trump tax--this tariff--is going to be 10 percent, 30 percent, or something in between or something higher?

New Hampshire is in a housing crisis. How can builders plan their costs when no one can tell them if there is going to be a new 30- or even 50-percent tax on their materials come Friday?

How can a family already struggling with high costs continue to pay the rent and put food on the table if their household expenses are going up $2,400 this year? And now, on Friday, the administration is planning to make the goods businesses and families need 10 or 30 or 40 or 50 percent more expensive overnight.

This President promised to lower the price of everything--groceries, rent, energy. What these tariffs do is just the opposite.

We are hearing a lot of positive spin from the administration about the deals they are striking. But let me end by making two points.

First, we heard a lot of talk about 90 deals in 90 days. Well, we are way past that deadline, and we have seen six--count them: six-- announcements. And it is not even clear that Vietnam has actually agreed to what the President announced.

Second, I want to remind all of us that these deals all force Americans and American businesses to pay a tax rate that is far higher than what we saw before the President engaged in this trade war.

I talked earlier about how, for both Europe and Japan, Americans will face a tax that is 10 times higher than we paid last year. That same trend holds across every deal he has announced. With Indonesia, he agreed to a 19-percent tax--four times what we paid last year.

With the Philippines, a 20-percent tax, up from 1.3 percent. So 15 times what we paid last year. And for the UK, where we have a trade surplus--again, a trade surplus--he agreed to a 10-percent tariff, again 10 times what we paid in 2024.

So we should be very clear. All of these rates are an increase from what Americans have been paying since April. This President has raised average tariffs from 2.5 percent to more than 17 percent, the highest level since the Great Depression.

Again and again, he is adding costs to American families and businesses, and what are these costs for? They are to finance tax cuts for the wealthiest Americans, for the biggest corporations. The end result of the President's ``Art of the Deal'' on trade is higher costs for families, uncertainty for businesses, and alienated allies who no longer view America as a reliable partner to do business with.

I yield the floor.