Pappas Joins Effort Calling on Speaker Johnson to Take Action on Bipartisan Measures to End Tariff War

Today Congressman Chris Pappas (NH-01) joined his colleagues in calling for Speaker Mike Johnson to immediately take up the bipartisan resolutions that passed the Senate last month to end President Trump’s global trade war and restore congressional authority over tariffs.

Article I of the Constitution gives Congress the power to levy taxes and tariffs, not the President. Last month, the Senate passed a series of bipartisan resolutions to overturn the Trump Administration’s tariffs, which have worsened our nation’s affordability crisis, driven up costs for consumers, and pose an existential threat to our nation’s small businesses. 

The members wrote, “While the Senate has reasserted its constitutional authority, under your leadership, the House has ceded control to the President and abdicated its responsibility to the American people. Although you have blocked any similar resolutions from coming to the floor under privileged consideration through March 2026, we urge you to reconsider your position as these tariffs threaten to ravage the American economy.”

“As the federal government emerges from the longest shutdown in history – due to Republicans’ refusal to protect health care for millions of Americans – it is time to show the American people that we are serious about lowering costs. President Trump’s tariffs are causing chaos in the economy and exacerbating the affordability crisis facing our country today. We cannot afford to wait any longer to take action,” they concluded.

Read the full letter HERE.

Background: 

Congressman Pappas has loudly and strongly opposed President Trump’s sweeping tariffs on New Hampshire’s #1 trading partner, Canada, and other U.S. allies. 

Pappas has signed two discharge petitions to force a vote on legislation to overturn the Administration’s harmful tariffs on Mexico and Canada, the U.S.’s two biggest trading partners, and introduced the Small Business Liberation Act and the CANADA Act in the House to exempt United States-owned small businesses from tariffs imposed by President Trump on his so-called ‘Liberation Day,’ and on trade with Canada respectively. 

He is also a cosponsor of the Prevent Tariffs Abuse Act, which would amend IEEPA to explicitly state that the authority granted to the President under the Act does not include the authority to impose duties, tariffs, or quotas on imports to the US. Pappas joined an amicus brief before the United States Supreme Court in the matter of Oregon, et al., v. Trump, et al, standing up for Congress’s Article I legislative powers and arguing that Congress did not intend or provide for IEEPA to be used as a tariff statute.