Senators unveil bipartisan bill meant to delay Trump auto tariffs

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Chairman Lamar Alexander, R-Tenn.

Sens. Doug Jones, D-Ala., and Lamar Alexander, R-Tenn., Wednesday introduced a bill intended to delay tariffs of 20 to 25 percent on imported cars and trucks President Donald Trump is reportedly considering.

The bill would require the International Trade Commission to conduct “a comprehensive study of the well-being, health, and vitality of the United States automotive industry before tariffs could be applied,” according to a press release.

The White House did not immediately respond to CNBC’s request for comment on the bill.

“These tariffs are a tax on American consumers and they’re going to cost Alabama jobs,” Jones said in a statement. “I share the President’s goal to reinvigorate manufacturing and secure trade deals that benefit our country, but not at the expense of one of Alabama’s biggest job creators.”

Alexander said he wants to delay the tariff proposal “until the President has a second opinion from the International Trade Commission about the effect those tariffs would have on the more than 7 million jobs in the American automotive industry.”

In June, Trump threatened to slap a 20 percent tariff on imports from members of the European Union if that organization’s trade barriers “not soon broken down and removed.”

Trump tweet: Based on the Tariffs and Trade Barriers long placed on the U.S. & its great companies and workers by the European Union, if these Tariffs and Barriers are not soon broken down and removed, we will be placing a 20% Tariff on all of their cars coming into the U.S. Build them here

The five-page bill arrives as tensions over the Trump administration’s protectionist trade policies continue to rise at home and abroad.

Numerous Republican lawmakers from the traditionally pro-free trade party excoriated the administration’s proposal on Tuesday to provide a $12 billion stopgap aid package for farmers affected by the tariffs.

Sen. Ben Sasse, R-Neb., described the bailout as a pair of “gold crutches.” Sen. Ron Johnson, R-Wisc., compared the Trump administration’s increasing interference in markets with “a Soviet-type of economy.”

Read the full text of the bipartisan bill: