Where Florida’s lawmakers stand on tariffs
POLITICO — GATORS WIN! Congrats to the men’s basketball national champions, the University of Florida Gators, who defeated the Houston Cougars 65-63 in San Antonio on Monday night. Assuming we’ll probably see a little more gator chomping than usual around the Capitol today. (At least a lot more than is usual in Tallahassee!)
Something that caught our eye off the court: Gov. RON DESANTIS and state Sen. BLAISE INGOGLIA, a DeSantis ally who hopes to be Florida’s next CFO, snapping a photo from the game.
Good morning and welcome to Tuesday.
In President DONALD TRUMP’s second term, Florida usually provides the backdrop or the characters for the biggest events. The fight over tariffs is no different.
“Treasury Secretary SCOTT BESSENT flew to Florida on Sunday to encourage President Donald Trump to focus his message on negotiating favorable trade deals,” POLITICO’s Megan Messerly and Sam Sutton report, “or risk the stock market cratering further, according to two people familiar with the conversations, granted anonymity to share details of them.”
Florida has already seen its own tariff-related drama before the recent market roller coaster: Leaders from both Canada and Florida have engaged in verbal skirmishes as trade tensions have escalated. But the latest round of tariffs threatens to go even further, affecting wide swaths of manufacturing, agriculture and construction sectors.
While the White House says dozens of countries have approached the administration to cut a deal, many Republicans on Capitol Hill are growing nervous about what it’ll mean for constituents — and for their own reelection prospects as Trump himself concedes the disruption “won’t be easy.”
The timing of the tariff announcement meant their consequences didn’t play into the two special elections in Florida a week ago. But that doesn’t mean their reverberations won’t spell trouble for members leading up to the midterms. The backlash over tariffs ripped across Florida this weekend, with “Hands Off!” protests erupting in South Florida, The Villages, Fort Myers and even Pensacola.
Democrats have struggled to find their footing in messaging against Trump, with the topic of higher costs proving effective in helping him get elected in November. Now, Democrats are beginning to flip the script.
Democrat Rep. MAXWELL FROST took to House Democrats’ “Daily Download” video to tell viewers the tariffs would be behind rising prices on items like food and gas in the weeks ahead. Frost blasted the tariffs as “chaotic,” “completely reckless” and “actively tanking the economy.”
Several Capitol Hill Republicans have pushed the White House to secure quick trade agreements to end the uncertainty in the economy, report POLITICO’s Jordain Carney and Benjamin Guggenheim. And at least seven senators have gotten behind a bipartisan bill that would have Congress review new tariffs. A House version of the bill is also expected to be introduced, but so far Floridians aren’t jumping in to sign their names to it.
Instead, a handful of Republicans from Florida’s congressional delegation staunchly stood by Trump on Monday, including Rep. ANNA PAULINA LUNA, who shared a video of Senate Minority Leader CHUCK SCHUMER from 2005, when he pushed for 27.5 percent tariffs on China. “I fully back our President!” she wrote on X. “The globalist economic order is in total meltdown mode.”
GOP Rep. GREG STEUBE said he stood with Trump, too. “For years, countries like China got the upper hand while our leaders sat back,” he said on X. “That ends now. Since President Trump laid out his trade policy, more than 50 countries have come to the table to fix their deals with us.”
