Rand Paul Fights Trump on Tariffs and Deficit Spending

Many Republican lawmakers lie low when they have differences with President Trump. Sen. Rand Paul has taken the opposite approach.

“Congress needs to grow a spine, and Congress needs to stand up for its prerogatives,” the Kentucky Republican told reporters, complaining that Trump relied on a national-emergency law to impose tariffs that Paul believes should be controlled by lawmakers. His comments came just days after he was one of only two GOP senators to vote against the party’s budget framework that is key to Trump’s tax cuts, saying it didn’t do enough to reduce the deficit.

The libertarian known for sometimes quixotic battles at the fringes of Capitol Hill is now at the center of the biggest fights in Washington. Paul’s moves have irritated the president, whom Paul never endorsed in the 2024 election, and now major parts of Trump’s agenda could hinge on whether the senator sticks to his guns or folds.

The conflict over tariffs could come to a head soon. A measure Paul is co-sponsoring to end Trump’s tariffs is set to come to the floor when the Senate returns next week. The effort is seen as having no chance of passing, but it will put fellow Republicans on the record as financial markets continue to reel and could pressure the administration to change course.

“I don’t have any bad feeling towards the president, but this is an issue that I’m not alone on,” said Paul. Noting the recent plunge in stock values, Paul said, “Millions of investors who are all self-interested have misgivings about tariffs.”

Paul is digging in even as other Republicans who object to the levies have avoided directly criticizing the White House. Some GOP senators, notably Sen. Ted Cruz of Texas, have warned of the dangers of tariffs if kept in place long term. But none have as directly criticized Trump’s actions.

Senate Majority Leader John Thune (R., S.D.), a longtime opponent of tariffs, has said that Republicans should give Trump room to apply levies since the president campaigned on the issue. Sen. Mike Lee (R., Utah), who has repeatedly introduced bills to require congressional approval of unilateral trade actions, has indicated he wasn’t planning to do so this year.

“If Rand Paul’s not opposing tariffs in the Senate, nobody is going to be opposing tariffs in the Senate,” said Rep. Thomas Massie (R., Ky.), who has taken his own lonely stances opposing party leadership.

First elected to the Senate in the 2010 tea-party wave, Paul carved out a role as the loudest, most persistent voice in Congress against what he sees as overreach by presidents related to foreign military actions and surveillance. In 2013, Paul tied up the Senate floor for about 13 hours, delaying the confirmation of the CIA chief, in an attempt to extract a government promise to never use drones to kill Americans on U.S. soil who aren’t involved in combat.

“They shouldn’t just drop a Hellfire missile on your cafe experience,” he said at the time.

Trump’s decision this year to impose across-the-board levies on the basis of national security trampled on Paul’s principles. Kentucky’s junior senator, the son of former congressman and presidential candidate Ron Paul, has made the case that national security was being used as cover to give broad powers to the executive branch.

Paul’s opposition is practical and ideological. Kentucky’s automotive industry has been unsettled since Trump announced tariffs of 25% on global automotive imports. Those tariffs were set in motion through a law that allows for tariffs after a Commerce Department investigation. But Paul also has objected to Trump’s use of a different statute, the International Emergency Economic Powers Act, to apply a 10% across-the-board tariff to most imports, with additional—now paused—duties tailored to each country.

“I don’t think taxes could be controlled by the president at all,” Paul said, saying that tariffs are a form of tax, which under the Constitution need to be passed by Congress.

Trump has threatened primary challenges against Republicans who oppose him, including Massie, but hasn’t gone that far against Paul, who challenged Trump for the Republican nomination in 2016. The two men golf together, and Paul’s longtime aide, Sergio Gor, now leads the White House presidential-personnel office. Paul said he admires the president’s actions so far in his second term—but not the tariffs—and told reporters that he and Trump had spoken recently.

After Paul was the lone Republican who voted against an initial GOP budget resolution in February, Trump told Fox News Radio, “Oh, boy, It never ends with these guys. They have to go and grandstand.”

Trump’s advisers say Paul damaged his relationship with Trump during the campaign when he didn’t offer an endorsement and appeared to flirt with a possible endorsement of Robert F. Kennedy Jr.

A person close to Trump said Paul’s decision not to endorse in the presidential race was bewildering. Paul ultimately endorsed Trump in February 2025, three months after the election.

Asked for comment about Paul’s stances, White House spokesman Kush Desai said the American people “resoundingly voted for America First policies in November, and President Trump is committed to delivering on this mandate as the leader of the Republican Party.”

Democrats aren’t surprised that Paul bucked Trump. Sen. Ron Wyden (D., Ore.), who has worked with Paul on tariff and government-surveillance legislation, said that Paul “does something that’s getting more and more rare in politics: When he tells you something, he means it.”

Paul teamed with Wyden on a resolution to undo so-called reciprocal tariffs, a resolution that is due to get a vote after the Senate’s current two-week recess. Paul also has unveiled legislation to cut off the other tools that Trump has used to impose levies, forcing the White House to obtain congressional approval for any tariffs on imports.

No other Republican is a sponsor of either bill, though several have backed a separate bipartisan measure that would allow Congress to remove tariffs put in place by any president.

Trump argues that lawmakers are undercutting his ability to secure better trading terms. “You don’t negotiate like I negotiate,” he said at a dinner arranged by House Republicans’ campaign arm. “If Congress takes over negotiating, sell America fast because you’re going to go bust.”

Paul has also railed against the revised GOP budget framework that was approved earlier this month, saying it was “smoke and mirrors” that would add trillions of dollars to the federal debt and objecting to a provision raising the debt ceiling by $5 trillion. Other Republicans on different parts of the ideological spectrum have concerns about likely Medicaid cuts in the emerging plan, making them all critical votes when the package is completed later this year.

Paul’s position on tariffs has created some unlikely moments. Earlier this month, Paul could be seen in a long conversation with a frequent antagonist, former Senate Republican leader Mitch McConnell (R., Ky.), on the Senate floor when both Republicans voted in favor of a Democratic-led resolution to undo a 25% tariff on Canadian imports.

“It was fun,” McConnell said. “We ought to try it more often.”