A resolution repealing American customs duties on Canada was approved Wednesday in the House of Representatives thanks to the vote of several Republican elected officials openly opposed to Donald Trump's protectionist policy. The latter threatened them with reprisals. He can always veto this text, the significance of which is above all symbolic.
Published on: 02/12/2026 - 00:53
Several Republican elected officials in the American House of Representatives went against the grain of Donald Trump on Wednesday February 11 and voted for the repeal of customs duties on Canada, a setback for the American president who threatened the rebel deputies during the vote.
The text must now be approved by the Senate. But even if adopted, it will undoubtedly be vetoed by the tenant of the White House, who has made customs duties the cornerstone of his economic policy.
Only a new vote in Congress and adoption with a two-thirds majority would make it possible to override this veto, a virtual impossibility given the majority that Republicans currently have in both chambers. The resolution therefore has a primarily symbolic significance.
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During the vote, Donald Trump warned that elected officials from his camp voting against his customs duties “will suffer the consequences at the time of the elections, including the primaries”. “Tariffs have given us economic and national security, and no Republican should be responsible for destroying that privilege,” he added in his message on his Truth Social platform.
“Tariffs are a tax on American consumers”
Six deputies from the majority nevertheless joined the Democrats to end the state of emergency decreed by the president in February 2025, which had allowed him to impose customs duties on products imported from Canada.
The vote came after the expiration of a measure that banned any vote on the issue of customs duties. The Republican leader of the House, Mike Johnson, tried until Tuesday evening to extend it, in vain.
Supporters of free trade, many elected officials on the right more or less publicly disapprove of Donald Trump's protectionist policy, especially since it is Congress, and not the president, who holds the constitutional power to impose customs duties.
Reaffirming this legislative prerogative, Republican MP Don Bacon said Wednesday: “We cannot and we must not outsource our responsibilities.” “As an old-fashioned conservative, I know that tariffs are a tax on American consumers,” he said on X before voting for repeal.
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Canada, like many allies of the United States, has been hit by successive waves of tariffs decided by Donald Trump since his return to power in January 2025. The American president had decreed import surcharges of 35% on many Canadian products last year, but had reduced this rate for energy imports and created broad exemptions for goods falling within the framework of the CUSMA free trade agreement between the United States, the Canada, and Mexico. More than 85% of trade between the two countries remained exempt from customs duties under the terms of this agreement.
With AFP
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