Six House Republicans crossed party lines Wednesday evening to hand Democrats a 219-211 vote terminating President Trump's emergency powers behind his 25% tariff on Canadian goods. The resolution of disapproval passed after Democrat Rep. Gregory Meeks of New York forced the vote — an opening that existed only because House Republican leadership failed to pass a rule Tuesday night that would have blocked the challenge entirely.
According to The Daily Caller, three GOP defections sank that Tuesday effort. By Wednesday, six Republicans joined every Democrat but one to deliver the rebuke.
The vote is largely symbolic. A similar resolution is expected to pass the Senate, but President Trump will almost certainly veto it — and the margin falls well short of the two-thirds override threshold. Still, the optics are ugly for a party operating with a razor-thin majority, and the episode exposes a persistent fault line within the GOP on trade.
Five of the six Republicans who voted for the resolution are described as pro-free trade members:
The sixth is libertarian-leaning Rep. Thomas Massie of Kentucky, who already has a Trump-endorsed primary challenger. Two other Republicans did not vote.
On the other side of the aisle, retiring Democrat Rep. Jared Golden of Maine was the lone member of his party to oppose the resolution — a small but notable break from Democrat lockstep.
Speaker Mike Johnson could afford exactly one defection on a party-line vote. He got six. Speaking to Fox Business' Maria Bartiromo on Wednesday, Johnson made his frustration clear:
"This is life with a razor thin majority as we have. I think it's a big mistake. I don't think we need to go down the road of trying to limit the president's power when he is in the midst of negotiating America First trade agreements with nations around the world."
Johnson's argument isn't abstract. The president levied the 25% tariff on Canadian goods in February 2025, citing a national emergency over drug trafficking and illegal immigration at the northern border. Whether one agrees with the tariff rate or not, the underlying rationale — that Canada has been an inadequate partner on border security — is not a fringe position. Skeptical lawmakers have asserted just a fraction of the fentanyl trade comes from Canada, but that's an argument about degree, not about whether the executive should retain leverage during active negotiations.
And that's the core tension. The defecting Republicans aren't just disagreeing on trade policy. They're voting to strip a negotiating tool from a president mid-negotiation. There's a difference between thinking tariffs are bad economics and actively undermining the executive's hand at the table.
This wasn't the first time Republicans broke ranks on the Canada tariffs. The Senate passed a similar resolution in October after four Republicans crossed party lines. The Supreme Court heard oral arguments in November on whether the president can unilaterally impose tariffs using sweeping emergency powers — a case that could reshape the legal landscape regardless of what Congress does.
That's three institutions now engaging the same question from different angles: Congress through resolutions, the courts through constitutional review, and the executive through veto authority. The system is working exactly as designed, even if the process looks messy.
For the pro-free-trade wing of the party, this is a matter of principle. For the populist-nationalist majority, it looks like members are choosing ideological comfort over strategic discipline. Two of the six defectors — Bacon and Newhouse — aren't running again, which strips away whatever electoral risk might have concentrated their minds. Massie has never been particularly concerned with party loyalty, and his primary challenger suggests the base has noticed.
The resolution heads to the Senate, where passage seems likely. Then it lands on the president's desk, where the veto pen awaits. The math doesn't exist for an override, which means the tariffs stand — for now.
But the vote matters beyond its immediate legislative effect. It signals to trading partners that the president's leverage has visible cracks in his own caucus. It gives Democrats a talking point they didn't earn through their own ideas but through Republican fractures. And it reminds the White House that a five-seat majority is not a mandate for assuming party discipline on issues where the old GOP and the new GOP still haven't fully reconciled.
Six votes didn't change the tariffs. But they changed the conversation — and in Washington, that's often the point.