Senate Republican: 'I'm worried' about Trump tariffs

Sen. John Kennedy (R-La.) weighed into the conversation around President Trump's tariffs on Mexico and Canada, signaling that he's "worried" about the relationship with the U.S.'s top trading partners.

Despite the concern, Kennedy said he believes the president will reconsider if the tariffs spur inflation.

“I think President Trump on economics and otherwise is doing very well, but you remember the old saying: 'the danger of rising high is that the air gets thin.' I’m worried about the tariffs," he said in a Thursday evening appearance on Fox Business. "I’m not saying that tariffs are going to cause inflation. President Trump did them in his first term and they didn’t."

“I’m saying that we just don’t know and we’re in very obscure territory. We’re in uncharted waters," he told host Larry Kudlow. "I think if the tariffs do start to cause inflation, I think the president will back away from them."

Trump's 25 percent tariffs on goods coming from Canada and Mexico, along with an additional 10 percent tax on imports from China, were put into place Tuesday. The president justified his decision by arguing that all three of the nations were not doing enough to curb the influx of drugs, specifically fentanyl, coming into the United States.

In response, Canada retaliated with its own 25 percent tariffs on $30 billion in goods.

China said on Tuesday that it would impose a 15 percent levy on a variety of products, including chicken, wheat, corn and cotton. Beijing also added 15 American companies to its unreliable entities list, likely barring them from engaging in China-related import or export activities. 

The commander-in-chief on Thursday paused tariffs on Canadian and Mexican imports that are covered by the 2020 U.S.-Mexico-Canada Agreement (USMCA), including cars. It is set to last until April 2. Tariffs on Canada’s potash, an important fertilizer ingredient, will also drop down to 10 percent. 

“That includes autos, and the autos were the lead in getting this done, but also Canada and Mexico have done a good job offering us ever more work to prove to us they’re going to cut the fentanyl deaths,” Commerce Secretary Howard Lutnick said. 

However, Lutnick also noted that after the April 2 mark, the administration would move to impose reciprocal tariffs, adding that “hopefully Mexico and Canada will have done a good enough job on fentanyl that this part of the conversation will be off the table, and we’ll move just to the reciprocal tariff conversation.”

Kennedy said Thursday that if the tariffs start to cause more inflation, “we’re going have to recalibrate.”

“I’m not saying that I don’t trust President Trump, but you know, there’s another saying: 'Trust in God but tie up your camel,'" he added.

The Louisiana Republican told Kudlow that other focuses of the administration, such as border security and negotiating peace in the Middle East and Eastern Europe are significant, but the most important issue for working-class families is “when they lie down and sleep at night in camp, and the thing they expect the president to fix is high prices.”

In early December last year, when asked about Trump’s tariffs, Kennedy told Fox Business that the taxes are “a little bit like whiskey, it depends on the circumstances."