Republicans are reportedly “feeling jittery” over the potential economic fallout to President Donald Trump’s tariffs, set to kick off on Thursday but already starting to impact job growth and costs.
“Republicans on Capitol Hill are feeling jittery about the economy after the latest jobs report showed the economy added far fewer jobs than previously estimated over the past three months,” wrote Alexander Bolton in The Hill on Tuesday.
“President Trump and his economic team insist that the economy is going strong and poised for significant growth, but their bullish projections are meeting skepticism from some in the GOP who worry Trump’s trade regime is creating economic headwinds.”
Economic uncertainty has swirled since the publication last week of the latest jobs report that showed the weakest monthly job growth in the United States since the height of the COVID-19 pandemic, a report that left experts stunned, and many of whom attributed directly to Trump’s tariff policy.
And while economists and Democratic lawmakers have been quick to place blame for the sluggish economy, Republicans are now starting to voice concerns of their own, though some anonymously out of fear of criticizing Trump.
“I don’t think that the administration can ignore them,” said a Republican senator, speaking under the condition of anonymity with The Hill about the weak job numbers. “You have to see that connection, that link. I don’t think spinning it is good enough.”
Other Republicans spoke on the record about their concerns, including Sen. Thom Tillis (R-NC), who has more openly criticized Trump in recent weeks after defying the president on his budget reconciliation bill last month and subsequent announcement of retirement.
Specifically, Tillis took aim at Trump for firing the head of the Bureau of Labor Statistics last week, done just hours after the agency published its latest jobs report. Trump called the data from the jobs report “rigged” to make Republicans “look bad,” and without evidence.
“The numbers are what the numbers are,” Tillis told The Hill. “If we get to a point to where BLS [and] all these organizations that are considered to be the gold standard for data, if we start undermining them or people start losing their jobs because we don’t like the result, that’s a big boo-boo.”
On Trump’s firing of the BLS commissioner, Erika McEntarfer, Tillis warned that the president was “making a huge mistake” if he ultimately doesn’t provide evidence of any wrongdoing, as he had claimed.
And Sen. Rand Paul (R-KY) also took aim at Trump’s tariffs, if not conservatively, citing complaints from his own constituents fearful of the how tariffs could force business owners to increase prices later this year.
“I’ve had retailers telling me that they think their prices will have to change in the fall,” Paul told The Hill.
“As their initial contracts change, their input price is higher [and] goods will go higher, too. I think it is worrisome and I do worry that the news has been relatively benign on tariffs so far. The proof is really in the next couple months.”