SPOKANE, Wash. — Senator Maria Cantwell (D-WA), who sits on the Senate Finance Committee, has been outspoken in her frustration with President Donald Trump’s blanket tariffs. In Spokane on Thursday the senator took questions on new tariffs imposed by the Trump administration on India.
“This is horrible, the cost to Americans in raising household costs, food costs, basically manufacturers having to pay more input costs and then raising manufacturing challenges for them—it’s just not what we need to do right now,” Senator Cantwell said, “We are a big trade state and we have benefited from building alliances and opening up markets, and now we are contracting those opportunities and making it more expensive on Americans.”
Senator Cantwell was instrumental in opening trade between the United States and India. She pushed back on the Biden administration and was able to make a deal happen to allow for Washington agriculture to be sold in India.
That deal was announced in 2023 during a state visit from the Indian Prime Minister.
On Thursday tariffs were imposed on trade with India at 25%. An additional 25% were slated to take effect 21 days later. The senator reacted directly to that.
“This is not where we need to be going with India today, we need to be building alliances to markets around the globe.” Senator Cantwell said, “When we think what we were able to do with not just the apple market but the lentil market – these were huge opportunities and we were building on relationships that was going to get us a lot more export for our growers.”
She went on to say that the stack of tariffs isn’t going to be good and said it’s a change in being able to market and make progress for the sale of Washington agriculture. The Indian market produced $19.5 million in Apple sales for the state in 2024.
The president said the reason for the additional tariffs had to with the Indians purchasing Russian oil, and in turn “supporting the Russian war machine.” The senator disagreed with the approach.
“The best way we can counter Russia and China is to build alliances with Europe, with Asia, with India… when we leave our self out of these markets they (India) go build alliances [without us] and that’s the one thing we don’t want to see,” Senator Cantwell said.
The senator has regularly used her position in the finance committee to push back on tariffs and most recently introduced bi-partisan legislation with Senator Chuck Grassley (R-IA) that requires The President to explain reasoning & impacts of new tariffs to Congress within 48 hours.
“For too long, Congress has delegated its clear authority to regulate interstate and foreign commerce to the executive branch. Building on my previous efforts as Finance Committee Chairman, I’m joining Senator Cantwell to introduce the bipartisan Trade Review Act of 2025 to reassert Congress’ constitutional role and ensure Congress has a voice in trade policy,” Sen. Grassley said via email release.
The bill would restore Congress’ authority and responsibility over tariffs as outlined in Article I, Section 8 of the Constitution, these are the changes the two lawmakers are pushing for in that legislation:
To enact a new tariff, the president must notify Congress of the imposition of (or increase in) the tariff within 48 hours.The Congressional notification must include an explanation of the president’s reasoning for imposing or raising the tariff, and provide analysis of potential impact on American businesses and consumers.Within 60 days, Congress must pass a joint resolution of approval on the new tariff, otherwise all new tariffs on imports expire after that deadline.Under the bill, Congress has the ability to end tariffs at any time by passing a resolution of disapproval.Anti-dumping and countervailing duties are excluded.
“My colleagues have to stand up and fight back this isn’t even the prerogative of the president, in a very narrow sense some tariff actions are but this broad of policy is something that he should be coming to Congress on and my colleagues should stand up and call for him to do that,” Senator Cantwell said.
