As President Donald Trump continues to impose steep import taxes on foreign goods, he's rattled financial markets, raised prices for American consumers and brought the U.S. economy to the brink of recession.
Some members of Congress, including most of Maine's delegation, are increasingly uneasy — but efforts to curtail his tariff power are likely going nowhere.
Maine Public asked each member of the congressional delegation several questions. Among them: Do you understand the president's tariff policy?
"I think you're dignifying it by using the word 'policy.' There's no policy I can discern," says U.S. Sen. Angus King, an independent who caucuses with Democrats.
King says the president's whiplash tariff rollout has been haphazard, with no clear path to achieving his stated goal of reviving American manufacturing.
"Tariffs have gone on, gone off, come back. He said last week that we'll never reduce these, this is fixed. And then all of a sudden yesterday there's the 90-day pause, so, I don't think anybody understands what the policy is," he says.
And that, King says, includes members of the Trump administration. Last week the president announced so-called reciprocal tariffs on goods coming from every country across the globe, including some places that aren't countries at all.
He called it "Liberation Day."
But his formula for assessing the import taxes confounded just about everyone.
The move sent financial markets into a tailspin. Worse, says Democratic U.S. Rep. Chellie Pingree, the bond market, typically a safe haven during uncertainty, began to tank.
"As one member said to me ... stocks can go up and down, but when the bond market goes to hell, you're in real trouble," she says.
Still, the president and his aides continued to defend Trump's tariff scheme even after he abruptly pulled back and announced a 90-day pause on his reciprocal tariffs.
It happened just as his trade representative, Jamieson Greer, was grilled by Democrats on the House Ways and Means Committee, including by Rep. Steven Horsford, from Nevada.
"How long is the pause? How many days? How many weeks?" Horsford asked.
"I understand it's 90 days. I haven't spoken to the president ..." Greer replied.
"So the trade representative hasn't spoken to the President of the United States about a global reordering of trade," Horsford continued.
"Yes I have. I've just been in the hearing with you, so ..." Greer said.
"But yet he announced it on a tweet?" Horsford continued. "Who's in charge?"
Trump is in charge. And that, Pingree says, is the problem.
"I do not believe the president should have this unilateral power," she says.
No member of Maine's congressional delegation does.
But they have different views of how much power a president should have.
Rep. Jared Golden, a Democrat representing Maine's more conservative 2nd District, has largely supported the president's moves on import taxes. The White House even cited his praise for Trump's 10% universal tariffs announced on so-called Liberation Day.
Golden notes that presidents, including Trump, don't have unilateral power to impose tariffs.
"And I wouldn't want anyone to have such power," he says.
It's true that presidents aren't supposed to have that power except during emergencies.
Asked whether he believes Trump is operating within the bounds of that authority, Golden says, "It feels like a more dangerous world with some other countries out there who aren't friendly to the United States, like yeah, I actually think that there is a justification, like a nexus that brings together national security and trade."
Golden says he doesn't necessarily agree with every move Trump has made, but he understands the larger strategic goal of reordering global trade and reshoring American manufacturing.
"But again, that doesn't mean they're executing that plan as optimally as they could, or perhaps even clumsily in some instances here," he says.
And that, King says, is the reason why Congress is supposed to have a role in reviewing and approving tariffs. He says Congress has incrementally surrendered that power to presidents, paving the way for Trump's actions now.
"This president has chosen to define whatever he wants as an emergency and therefore undertake this drastic reordering of the world economy," he says.
And that's making a lot of people uneasy. Patrick Woodcock of the Maine State Chamber of Commerce has said repeatedly that reshoring manufacturing is a good goal, but he has raised questions about Trump's tariffs on Maine's biggest trading partner, Canada.
More recently, he has been worried about a recession created by the president's other tariff maneuvers.
"We (Maine) would really be swept away by any recession, nationally or globally. And I think that's where everybody is racing to see the clarity of a long-term plan from the Trump administration," he says.
But obtaining a plan — or forcing one — has yet to happen.
Republican U.S. Sen. Susan Collins this week joined a bipartisan group of senators to back a bill that would require the president to explain the rationale and impacts on new tariffs within 48 hours.
Collins' press office did not make her available for an interview and instead forwarded press releases and interviews with other news outlets. In one release, Collins said the unilateral imposition of tariffs by the president without congressional oversight undermines its constitutional role and can have harmful effects on businesses and residents.
She recently joined Democrats in passing a resolution that would end the emergency declaration Trump used to impose taxes on Canada, saying they would damage Maine's trade relationship and jack up prices.
"And as price hikes always do, they will hurt those the most who can afford them the least," she said during a Senate floor speech.
Trump lashed out at Collins, calling her disloyal to the Republican Party.
A similar backlash likely awaits other Republicans who try to reassert Congress' traditional role in setting trade policy.
And Pingree says those moves — and the bill terminating the emergency declaration for tariffs on goods from Canada — are likely doomed.
"The president is trying to act under his emergency powers, which is just the way this president acts," she said. "And what's unfortunate now is that the House has voted to give up our ability to restrain him."
Trump is using National Emergencies Act to implement his tariff scheme. Congress can pass a resolution requiring either the House or Senate to vote on terminating that declaration within 15 days.
That's exactly what the Canada bill that Collins and King voted for was supposed to do. But its companion bill in the House is basically dead. That's because House Republicans voted to change the rules so that no calendar day counts toward the 15-day clock.
In doing so, the GOP not only stopped time, but also, their own ability to curtail President Trump's tariff spree.
