Clapping and cheering erupted during a closed Senate Republican lunch when news broke that President Donald Trump planned a 90-day pause on tariffs, senators in the room said.
Trump’s announcement was a surprise to the Senate Republicans ABC News spoke to. Several said they had no indication from the White House that it was coming.
But for many Republicans who have been nervously bracing for the potential of rising costs in their states as markets plummeted, it was welcome news.
Sen. Ted Cruz, who has been one of the Senate’s more vocal skeptics of Trump’s approach, said he discussed tariffs with Trump over the phone for an hour Tuesday night. He said he advocated that Trump “use this opportunity to fight for lower tariffs all around and not listen to the voices within his administration that wants to embrace high tariffs in perpetuity.”
Sen. Mike Rounds said the news “lightened up” the lunch discussion. “I think we were all happy to see a hockey stick on the reports coming out of New York,” he said of the uptick in markets. “A lot of smiles.”
Sen. Chuck Grassley, the lead Republican on legislation that would rein in the president’s authority on new tariffs, called the announcement “good news.”
“It means that there is some moderation. Some predictability,” he said. “Things are moving. It will bring credibility to the whole process.”
A number of Republicans painted the pause as an indication that Trump’s tactics are working. And the 90-day pause is necessary to allow negotiations with the number of countries the administration says is coming to the table to strike a deal.
“I do think it’s appropriate, given just the magnitude of the response, the initial response by the global markets and the world, and the magnitude of the volume of the countries that want to sit down and talk, I think it’s appropriate to have a cease-fire while the peace talks take place,” Sen. Kevin Cramer said.
Sen. Tommy Tuberville said the pause was necessary because the White House was overloaded by countries wanting to make a deal, “So it’s working.”
Still, there’s some skepticism among senators who have been critical of the tariffs over the last few weeks.
“The reality is that probably slows down any escalation, it doesn’t do much for certainty,” Sen. Thom Tillis said. “Now I think the next phase needs to be really moving quickly on deal flow for the major trading partners.”
Tillis said the 90-day pause may “calm the markets down,” but negotiations need to be solidified to ease the concerns of business.
“Why would why would any business adviser recommend to a board or to a CEO to deploy capital now when you don’t know what the long-term cost is going to be and the tax environment?” Tillis said.
Most Republicans stood by Trump’s plan to continue to impose steep tariffs against China.
“Today’s announcement was very directly focused on China,” Cruz said. “I think China is the single greatest geopolitical threat facing the United States over the next 100 years, and folks anything we can do to delink our economy from China is a good thing, both for American economic security and for our national security.”
Many said China was making a mistake by retaliating.
Sen. Eric Schmitt said China is “playing a very dangerous game” with its trade policy.
“I always view this in two very different buckets: China and everybody else,” he said. “China has escalated this, and China is going to be the big loser here.”
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