Congress’s Rejection of Trump’s Canada “Emergency” Is a Welcome—but Woefully Insufficient—Move

Alfredo Carrillo Obregon and Scott Lincicome

The House of Representatives voted on Wednesday night (February 11) to terminate the national emergency declared by President Trump last year with respect to the flow of illegal narcotics from Canada, which he then used to justify imposing tariffs under the International Emergency Economic Powers Act (IEEPA) on Canadian imports. The resolution now heads to the Senate, which passed similar resolutions last April and October, rejecting the president’s tariffs on imports from America’s northern neighbor—and the dubious fentanyl emergency on which these taxes are based. 

Unfortunately, no resolution carried the veto-proof majority that would ensure the termination of both the emergency and the tariffs, and it is unlikely that such a supermajority will emerge when the Senate considers the House’s resolution. So, while the outcome of the House’s vote is a welcome sign that more members of Congress are willing to break with the president’s tariff policy, the likely absence of a veto-proof majority in both chambers to terminate this particular emergency is also an unfortunate indication that Trump’s misguided tariffs will continue, and that Congress remains unwilling to prevent the continued abuse of presidential emergency authority.

From the outset, the president’s case for invoking the National Emergencies Act (NEA) and IEEPA due to illegal drugs coming into the United States from the northern border rested on shaky ground. Canada only accounted for about 0.2 percent of all fentanyl seizures at the US border in 2024, and more drugs were seized coming into Canada from the United States than the other way around. Furthermore, the Trudeau government announced additional measures in November 2024 to combat the flow of illegal narcotics after then-President-elect Trump issued his first tariff threat to Canada.

After President Trump declared the emergency, it quickly became a mere pretext for turning IEEPA into a personal “tariff” button. As Table 1 shows, the president used tariffs and the threat thereof to address other grievances with Canada stemming from Canada’s retaliation to the IEEPA duties, dairy policies, aircraft regulations, and even a pro-trade commercial aired by the Ontario government during the World Series. Some of these grievances were overblown (e.g., Canada’s supposedly high dairy tariffs), some were petty (e.g., the World Series ad), but they all shared one feature: they were unrelated to the underlying “emergency” that the president used to justify invoking IEEPA in the first place. 

To top it off, the president also granted carve-outs from the tariffs to politically connected US industries, such as the auto and agricultural sectors, and to politically sensitive items, such as energy.

Though approximately 65 percent of Canadian imports to the US in 2025 (through November) entered under the US-Canada-Mexico Agreement (USMCA) preferential regime—and thus were exempt from the IEEPA tariffs—the tariffs and the uncertainty they’ve created have imposed real costs on American companies, farmers, and families. The IEEPA tariff regime has contributed to raising the average effective US tariff rate on non-USMCA Canadian imports from nearly zero in 2024 to 2.7 percent in 2025 and resulted in more than $2.4 billion in new taxes paid almost entirely by Americans through mid-December 2025. Beyond these aggregate costs, the tariffs also disrupted specific industries. Tariffs on Canadian oil, for instance, led to price increases and reduced imports shortly after entering into effect, and likely continue to impose costs as Canada accounted for 63 percent of the US total imports of crude oil in 2025 (through November), including 100 percent of Midwest crude oil imports. (Around 20 percent of those imports entered without claiming preferential treatment under USMCA.) 

In sum, the president’s abuse of his emergency authority under the National Emergencies Act (NEA) and his (highly questionable) tariff authority under IEEPA resulted in an absurd succession of tariffs and tariff threats, which harmed American consumers and firms, undermined transparency and the rule of law in US trade policy, and further heightened tensions with one of America’s longest-standing allies. The Canada emergency, thus, offers a particularly compelling case for Congress to reclaim its authority over US tariff policy and, more broadly, to discipline executive use of the NEA, through which presidents have vast and unchecked powers that are typically reserved to Congress. (As Lincicome documented earlier this month, fifty national emergencies are active today, many of which date back decades.)

The resolution passed by the House and its likely passage in the Senate are welcome news, but if Congress is to fulfill its constitutional obligation to serve as a real check on unbounded executive power, there’s much left to do.