Because President Donald Trump announced a novel round of tariffs that could cause a global trade war on Wednesday, at least one republican legislator from Pennsylvania expressed skepticism as to the action of the president’s plan.
American representative Mike Kelly, a Republican from Butler, was the owner and led Kelly Automotive – a group of car dealers in Butler – for years before joining Congress. Considering that car parts are produced all over the world, Kelly said, it was not clear how Trump’s tariffs work.
“I did it all my life, and when I look at it, how do you break it? Because the supply chain is global, right?” Kelly said Inquirer on Capitol Hill on Wednesday. “So if the Chevy truck is assembled in some other part of the world, and the Korean car is folded here, that is, wait a while, I don’t know how you do it. I don’t know how it cut it or how it is cut.”
“It’s not:” Oh, it’s Toyota, it’s a foreign car, “Kelly added. “No, it’s not. No anymore.”
In the case of Pennsylvania, which is not an important auto-production center, Kelly predicts that the impact of car tariffs will have on consumers.
“When you have different supplies on the same shelf in front of the tariffs and after the tariffs, and the same car, but different prices, yes, it causes a lot of confusion,” Kelly said.
Skepticism was a bit rare from Kelly, a solid ally of Trump, who managed a congress task group leading to conducting killing against the then presidential candidate in the hometown of Kelly, butler. But Kelly’s office later explained that although the legislator has questions about how car tariffs can work, supports them.
“He is the biggest disturbance he has ever sat down in the White House,” Kelly said about Trump.
In an interview on Tuesday at Fox News RadioSenator Dave McCormick (R., Pa.) He admitted that the uncertainty about Trump’s tariff plan is raising the stock market, but said he was supporting the president’s desire in foreign trade.
“I think that the biggest imbalance is probably production companies, because they are happening in China and other places,” said McCormick. “I think that we want to bring this production home. Steel tariffs, aluminum tariffs are to equalize the chances.”
McCormick said that his greatest concern concerns American production capabilities when it comes to pharmaceuticals and semiconductors, which were revealed during the pandemic peak.
“During Covid we learned that we are dependent on other countries for the immense majority of semiconductors,” said McCormick.
“People will suffer”: Shapiro says that the tariff plan will hit PA.
Speaking at a party advertising local breweries in Bethlehem on Wednesday, Governor Josh Shapiro slammed Trump’s tariff plan as a tax raise that will “hurt” consumers and small companies.
“I’m not sure why the President of the United States wants to do it to our compact companies, wants to harm our main streets,” Shapiro said, warning that “people will suffer” and promising government support to help local companies.
Shapiro pointed to the influence on the craft breweries in Pennsylvania, which turn to Canada to obtain aluminum in can and sweet barley, which they use to brew beer. Shapiro said that those that the sources of their materials still increased due to the growing demand, when companies revolve to avoid Trump’s tariffs, said Shapiro.
“I just want the president not to act as recklessly against us as he did,” said Shapiro. “This tariff war that begins, this button that presses, will have one effect, and this effect consists in increasing the costs of consumers and companies throughout Pennsylvania at a time where we cannot afford it.”
Other democrats from Pennsylvania joined Shapiro, condemning Trump’s plan.
“Trump’s non -compressing tariff activities will publish a novel wave of prices of challenging -working families in Pa & Beyond tomorrow, a US representative Dwight Evans, a democrat who represents the parts of Philadelphia, he wrote on social media on Tuesday. “He expects to raise billions of dollars through these taxes, because the Republicans in Congress are looking for ways to finance another tax reduction for the rich.”
Senator John Fetterman (D., Pa.) Recently did not talk about Trump’s tariff plan, but publicly criticized the president’s general approach regarding trade towards Canada and Mexico.
“In fact, I don’t understand why President Trump chooses all this type of tariffs with our allies” Fetterman said during an interview at MSNBC last month. “There may be problems such as fentanyl or some of them, but this does not mean that we have to hit them on the lips, because it does not make America great.”
Caution from expectation and see some Republican legislators
Other Republicans at Capitol Hill offered more caution of waiting and seeing before the announcement of Trump.
“I am very excited and wanting to see what will come out,” said US representative Rob Bresnahan, who represents Lackawanna. “There is a lot of uncertainty about what will ultimately mean for the end user. But I do not want to leave the skis until we see what it will talk about.”
US representative Ryan Mackenzie, a Republican who represents the Lehigh Valley, said that he had heard from some voters concerned about the influence of Trump’s tariffs, but said that many companies began to prepare for the upcoming changes.
“Yesterday I heard from one company that they began to change the supply chains and transfer things in the potential expecting of something like that,” said Mackenzie.
“So I know that there is variability on the market and I think that it leads to the uncertainty of what products it is used to and at what pace. But at the same time many people were already expecting something like that.”
US representative Dan Meuser, a Republican who represents the Luzerne and longtime ally of Trump, defended the tariff, even if some priceaches occur.
“The whole idea is to create a more honest market around the world and, to be honest, greater stability,” said Meuser, noting that it could grow.
“I do not guarantee that it will work perfectly,” said Meuser, “but I think the president has enough information and [Commerce Secretary] Howard Lutnick and others involved here to do it in a tariff plan, which is significantly beneficial to the United States than for other countries. “
