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Trump Tells Farmers ‘Have Fun’ As He Kicks Off Pointless Trade Wars. Cantwell Tells the Truth: ‘It’s Not Going to Be Fun, It’s Going to Be A Nightmare’

Ahead of Presidential address, Cantwell calls on Congress to reclaim its Constitutional authority over tariffs

Cantwell also calls out arbitrary and wasteful layoffs at NOAA, NIH, NSF, USDA: “These kinds of ideas sound great, but they're not well thought out. It's literally throwing tax dollars away.”

WASHINGTON, D.C. – Today, U.S. Senator Maria Cantwell (D-WA), ranking member of the Senate Committee on Commerce, Science, and Transportation and senior member of the Senate Finance Committee, delivered a Senate floor speech raising concerns about the economic fallout of Trump’s newly announced tariffs, hours before the President is set to deliver remarks before a Joint Session of Congress.

 “Trump said to our farmers yesterday on Truth Social, quote, ‘tariffs will go on external products on April 2. Have fun.’ End quote,” Sen. Cantwell said. “’Have fun?’ ‘Have fun?’ When retaliatory tariffs strike our farmers -- just as they did in the first Trump administration -- it's not going to be fun, it's going to be a nightmare for our farmers. And many of the farmers in my state worry [whether] they will be able to farm at all.”

“I hope my colleagues will slow down on this tariff tirade. Under Article One, Section Eight of the U.S. Constitution, Congress has the power to set duties and regulate foreign commerce. However, Congress has spent the last 80 years delegating its tariff authority to presidents,” she continued. “This president, I believe, is abusing this authority. He calls it an emergency. He's using the trade wars to supposedly force countries to do things like changing their border policies. I believe it's time for Congress to start taking back some of that power and considering how we're going to protect the family farm.”

Over the past 24 hours, as President Trump’s long-promised 25% tariffs on goods from Mexico and Canada and 10% tariff increase on goods from China took effect, stock prices in the United States have plummeted. The Dow fell more than 700 points this morning. Today, the Wall Street Journal’s editorial board criticized his decision: “Trump takes the dumbest tariff plunge.”.

Sen. Cantwell also showed the following graph with the alarming new forecast by the Federal Reserve Bank of Atlanta, which recently began predicting negative real GDP growth for the first quarter of 2025, a rapid reversal of its prior forecast for growth.  “Just last week, when people want to talk about GDP and where this is going, it's amazing that the Atlanta Fed was forecasting GDP growth over two percent for the first quarter of 2025…. but we can see when we got to February, we fell off a cliff… this drop is the representation of a cliff that President Trump is pushing the American economy over.”

“We know this -- that in my state, families are paying more for groceries. They're paying more at the gas pump. They're paying more at electricity bills. And they are seeing the stock market plummet because as businesses grapple with Trump's unnecessary trade war, businesses are concerned about the long-term impacts of the supply chain and the cost of those tariffs,” Sen. Cantwell said.

In Washington state, two out of every five jobs are tied to trade and trade-related industries. More information on how President Trump’s tariffs on goods from Mexico, Canada, and China will affect consumers and businesses in the State of Washington can be found HERE. Nationwide:

• A 25% tariff on Canada and Mexico would add an estimated $144 billion a year to the cost of manufacturing in the United States.
• Tariffs on Canada and Mexico could increase U.S. car prices by as much as $12,000.
• According to the Yale Budget Lab, Trump’s proposed tariffs would result in the highest U.S. effective tariff rate in more than 80 years, and depending on the level of retaliation by other trading partners, will result in increased costs of between $1,600 and $2,000 per household. According to their analysis, electronics, clothing, cars, and food will all see above-average price increases.

Sen. Cantwell has remained a steadfast supporter of free trade to grow the economy in the State of Washington and nationwide. Sen. Cantwell was the leading voice in negotiations to end India’s 20% retaliatory tariff on American apples, which was imposed in response to tariffs on steel and aluminum and devastated Washington state’s apple exports. India had once been the second-largest export market for American apples, but after President Trump imposed tariffs on steel and aluminum in his first term, India imposed retaliatory tariffs in response and U.S. apple exports plummeted. The impact on Washington apple growers was severe: Apple exports from the state dropped from $120 million in 2017 to less than $1 million by 2023.  In September 2023, following several years of Sen. Cantwell’s advocacy, India ended its retaliatory tariffs on apples and pulse crops which was welcome news to the state’s more than 1,400 apple growers and the 68,000-plus workers they support.

In her speech today, Sen. Cantwell also railed against the Trump Administration’s Department of Government Efficiency’s (DOGE) push to indiscriminately slash federal workers from the payroll, compromising the vital ongoing work at federal agencies.

“The cuts that these agencies have been facing are really the cuts to some of the most technical jobs the United States government has. Whether you're talking about NOAA, or the National Weather Service, or the National Institutes of Health, or the National Science Foundation, or the US Department of Agriculture -- they've all been targeted for reductions. These agencies are critical to our economic growth and to our security. And at a time when we are seeing more extreme weather events, or more floods or more wildfires, why shouldn't we be investing more in weather forecasting, not less? 

“And when you look at NOAA workers who support our commercial, and recreation, and tribal fisheries, they employ 1.7 million people, including thousands in the State of Washington. Why would you cut specialized workforce that are helping support the growth of GDP?” Sen. Cantwell said.

“DOGE wants to cap the overhead expenses of research. University of Washington medicine tells me that this would leave them with shortfalls and that they might have to stop clinical trials that are underway. You can't just stop medical research like it's a faucet! Once halted, the research, the data, the clinical trials, the patients, the laboratories, the equipment -- all that led to innovation will be lost. You think you just turn that back on? You know, these kinds of ideas sound great, but they're not well thought out. It's literally throwing tax dollars away.”

Since DOGE announced its intent to hack away at federal agencies and programs, Sen. Cantwell has been sounding the alarm and coming to the defense of workers at NOAA, the Small Business Administration, the Department of Housing and Urban Development, the Federal Aviation Administration, the National Institutes of Health, the National Park Service, and more.

A video of her speech on the Senate floor today can be viewed HERE; audio is HERE; and a transcript is HERE.

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