Six House Republicans broke ranks on Wednesday and handed Democrats a 219-211 vote to terminate President Trump's tariffs on Canada — a symbolic rebuke that cleared the chamber despite aggressive efforts by GOP leadership to keep the conference in line.

The resolution, authored by Rep. Gregory Meeks (D-NY), targets Trump's Feb. 1, 2025, executive order declaring a national emergency and imposing tariffs on America's northern neighbor. The measure now heads to the Senate, where it faces long odds and almost certainly cannot survive a presidential veto, which would require a two-thirds majority in both chambers to override.

The damage, though, isn't legislative. It's political.

The Defectors

The six Republicans who crossed the aisle:

• Don Bacon (R-Neb.)
• Brian Fitzpatrick (R-Pa.)
• Jeff Hurd (R-Colo.)
• Kevin Kiley (R-Calif.)
• Thomas Massie (R-Ky.)
• Dan Newhouse (R-Wash.)

Three of them — Massie, Kiley, and Bacon — had already shown their hand the day before, voting with Democrats on Tuesday to kill a procedural rule in a 217-214 vote. That maneuver would have blocked tariff-related votes through the summer. GOP leadership wanted to smother the issue before it reached the floor. It didn't work.

According to the New York Post, on the other side of the aisle, Rep. Jared Golden (D-Maine) was the lone Democrat to vote against the resolution — a reminder that tariff politics don't sort neatly along party lines, especially in districts where trade cuts both ways.

Trump Fires Back

The president didn't wait long. Shortly after the vote, Trump posted on Truth Social:

Any Republican, in the House or the Senate, that votes against TARIFFS will seriously suffer the consequences come Election time, and that includes Primaries!

That's not ambiguity. That's a target list. Whether the six defectors absorb the hit or wear it as a badge will depend on their districts — but the White House is clearly not interested in treating this as a good-faith policy disagreement.

Speaker Mike Johnson, meanwhile, reinforced the party line on Fox Business Network:

The tariffs have been a tool that the president has used very effectively to level the playing field and put America back on top, and I think it's wrong for Congress to step in the middle of that.

Johnson's framing is correct on the merits. The Constitution grants the president broad authority over trade under national emergency powers, and the tariffs on Canada didn't materialize out of thin air. They emerged from a legitimate concern about the trade imbalance and, according to Bloomberg News reporting, frustration over Canada easing trade relations with China. Congress has every right to disagree. But passing symbolic resolutions that will never become law isn't legislating — it's messaging. And in this case, it's messaging that aligns perfectly with the Democratic minority's interests.

The Bigger Picture on Canada

The current tariff landscape on Canadian goods has evolved considerably since the original 25% rate set in February 2025. Most Canadian products and services not covered by the USMCA currently face a 35% duty, with energy-related imports at a lower 10% rate. Trump has used his national emergency authority to make a series of adjustments along the way.

And the president is not easing up. Bloomberg News has reported that Trump is privately contemplating whether to pull out of the USMCA entirely. He also threatened this week to block the opening of the new Gordie Howe International Bridge between Detroit and Windsor, Ontario — a project years in the making that now sits in geopolitical limbo.

This is leverage, not chaos. The administration's posture toward Canada has been consistently aggressive because Canada's posture toward its own obligations has been consistently inadequate. You don't get to cozy up to Beijing and then demand the same trade terms with Washington.

The Senate Math — and the Court

The resolution's path forward narrows dramatically in the upper chamber. The Senate has actually voted on similar measures before — last October, four Republicans joined all Democrats to terminate Trump's tariffs on Canada in a vote led by Sen. Tim Kaine (D-Va.). Sens. Mitch McConnell, Rand Paul, Susan Collins, and Lisa Murkowski all crossed over. The Senate has approved multiple resolutions targeting Trump's tariff authority over the past year, including measures aimed at tariffs on Canada, Brazil, and other countries.

But approving a resolution and overriding a veto are two very different things. The two-thirds threshold is a wall that tariff skeptics in Congress simply cannot scale with current numbers.

Looming over all of this is a Supreme Court case challenging Trump's authority to impose tariffs under the International Emergency Economic Powers Act. The justices appeared skeptical of that authority when they heard arguments in November. The Court is currently in recess and next scheduled to take the bench on February 20 — though they could break recess earlier if a decision is ready.

If the Court rules against the administration, the congressional votes become irrelevant. If it upholds the authority, these resolutions become even more symbolic than they already are.

What This Actually Reveals

Democrats will frame this vote as proof that a "tariff-skeptical majority" exists in Congress. That's a stretch. What exists is a narrow, fragile coalition of Democrats who oppose virtually everything Trump does and a half-dozen Republicans representing districts where specific trade relationships create political pressure. That's not a governing majority. That's a one-off.

The real question isn't whether six Republicans are uncomfortable with tariffs on Canada. Some of them have been uncomfortable since day one. The question is whether this discomfort translates into any structural resistance — or whether it evaporates the moment primary season heats up and Trump's Truth Social post starts circulating in district Facebook groups.

Democrats, meanwhile, have similar measures targeting tariffs on Brazil, Mexico, and elsewhere lined up for possible future votes. They'll keep forcing these roll calls for the same reason they forced this one: not to change policy, but to create division within the Republican conference. Every defection is a headline. Every headline is a pressure point.

The tariffs on Canada are doing exactly what tariffs are designed to do — creating economic pressure that forces a renegotiation of terms. Whether six House Republicans agree with the strategy is, legislatively speaking, beside the point. The president's veto pen makes sure of that.

What matters is whether the Republican conference can hold together on the fights that actually count — the ones where the margins are real and the consequences don't end with a presidential signature stopping the bill cold.

Wednesday's vote was a crack, not a collapse. But cracks have a way of spreading when nobody bothers to seal them.