Alaska’s two U.S. senators split Wednesday on a vote against President Donald Trump’s economic tariffs against Canada.
The U.S. Senate voted 51-48 to approve a resolution that would end the presidentially declared emergency that allowed Trump to impose tariffs on Canada.
The vote was largely symbolic because the resolution has almost no chance of passing the U.S. House, where the Speaker of the House has already taken action to prevent the emergency from ending.
Sen. Lisa Murkowski, R-Alaska, joined Senate Democrats and three other Republicans in voting to end the presidential emergency. The other Republicans were Susan Collins of Maine, Mitch McConnell of Kentucky, and Rand Paul of Kentucky. Paul co-sponsored the resolution.
Sen. Dan Sullivan, R-Alaska, joined all other Republicans in voting to oppose the resolution and support Trump’s decision.
Murkowski’s vote had been expected; in the days preceding the vote, Trump issued a statement asking her and other Republicans to “get on the Republican bandwagon, for a change.”
After her vote, Murkowski explained her reasoning in a statement on social media.
“While not all Canadian trade practices are fair, I’m keenly aware of the negative impacts in store for Alaskan families and businesses should tariffs drive up the costs of essential goods,” she wrote.
“In Alaska, this relationship matters. We share more than 1,538 miles of border with Canada – some of our communities share schools and churches. Our best-known road is the Alcan (Alaska-Canada) Highway. We are friends, neighbors, partners, and allies when it comes to our economies, our mutual defense, our cultures, and, yes, our trade.”
In enacting the tariffs, Trump cited the flow of illegal drugs from Canada to the United States. Statistics published by the Canadian and U.S. governments show 0.2% of the illegal fentanyl sold in the United States comes from Canada. More fentanyl flows from the United States to Canada than vice versa.
“Like any relationship, there are certainly areas for improvement. I support the President’s efforts to block the flow of fentanyl in our country, but we should remember the old saying that the U.S. and Canada are ‘neighbors by geography, and friends by choice.’ In that same spirit, I’m certain we can find a better way to mutually secure our borders and address fentanyl trafficking than by starting a trade war,” Murkowski wrote.
Sullivan’s office, in a statement released after his vote, said, “Last year, U.S. Customs and Border Protection seized enough fentanyl crossing the northern border to kill more than 9 million Americans.”
“Senator Sullivan believes that we should not accept any amount of deadly fentanyl coming in from either our Southern or Northern border,” said the emailed statement. “For the last two years in a row, Alaska has experienced the largest increase in drug overdose death rates of any state in the country. Senator Sullivan believes we need to do everything we can to stop the poisoning of Alaskans and Americans, including using tariffs as leverage to get Canada, Mexico and China to put more resources into stopping this deadly drug from coming into our country. The senator doesn’t believe the President’s goal is to have these particular tariffs in place forever, but rather they should drive our nations toward greater cooperation on this critical challenge. The senator will be evaluating the results of this strategy and its impact on Alaskans in the weeks and months ahead.”
In response to Trump’s policies, British Columbia’s government has introduced legislation to permit the province to levy a toll on vehicles traveling from the Lower 48 to Alaska.
• James Brooks is a longtime Alaska reporter, having previously worked at the Anchorage Daily News, Juneau Empire, Kodiak Mirror and Fairbanks Daily News-Miner. This article originally appeared online at alaskabeacon.com. Alaska Beacon, an affiliate of States Newsroom, is an independent, nonpartisan news organization focused on connecting Alaskans to their state government.
