Sen. Catherine Cortez Masto (D-Nev.) lashed out at Republican senators on Thursday after she could not get unanimous consent on legislation that would have protected Israel and Ukraine from tariffs instituted by U.S. President Donald Trump.
Israel originally got hit with a 17% tariff, “even though we maintain a free-trade agreement with them,” she said. “Their adversary Iran got tariffed at 10%. The Trump administration put no tariffs on Russia but charged Ukraine with a 10% tariff.”
The senator acknowledged that “we all know that targeted tariffs can be a useful tool to protect critical American manufacturing and combat our enemies, but that isn’t what President Trump is doing.”
“Instead, he’s punishing our allies, Israel and Ukraine,” she said.
As she was speaking on the floor, Trump announced that the administration would impose a baseline rate of 10% for the next 90 days on more than 75 countries, including Israel and Ukraine, pausing the higher rates that were due to go into effect on April 9 at 12:01 a.m.
Cortez Masto noted that “both these countries are currently under attack.”
“They need the United States to be standing with them, not hitting them with nonsensical tariffs that could cause them even more harm,” she said. “It is outrageous that my Republican colleagues blocked an opportunity to fix this and come together to protect our allies.”