Arizona Senator Mark Kelly questioning Secretary of Defense nominee Peter Hegseth during the Senate Armed Services Committee hearing on Tuesday, Jan. 14, 2024
Arizona Senator Mark Kelly is calling on President Donald Trump to abandon his proposed tariffs on key trading partners like Canada and Mexico, warning they would harm businesses and working families.
“These are taxes on working families and businesses,” Kelly said. “They're driving up costs when people are already struggling.”
Kelly pointed to the impact of past tariffs, recalling how Trump's 2017 tariffs on Mexico led to retaliatory measures that hurt Arizona’s dairy farmers. At the time, Mexico imposed tariffs on U.S. dairy products, dealing a severe blow to Arizona’s industry.
“It decimated their industry because 40% of the exports of the United Dairymen of Arizona go to Mexico,” Kelly said, recalling a visit with dairy farmers in February. “That put Arizonans out of work. When tariffs raise the cost of doing business, those costs get passed down to Arizona families in the form of higher prices on milk, cheese, and other dairy products at the grocery store.”
Mexico is Arizona’s largest trading partner, with the state exporting $9 billion in goods to Mexico last year. Canada follows in second place at $2.8 billion.
Trump has threatened to reinstate tariffs on Mexico and Canada, citing what he calls insufficient action on fentanyl trafficking. Speaking alongside Kelly on Wednesday morning, Minnesota Senator Amy Klobuchar rejected the tariff approach, arguing that the U.S. should focus on stronger border enforcement instead.
“He is not telling the truth when he says these are being paid by foreign countries,” Kelly said. “They make things more expensive to do business here, and it pushes costs over to families. It makes it hard for businesses to compete, and that kills jobs.”
Kelly expressed particular concern over how new tariffs could disrupt Arizona’s growing semiconductor industry, a key part of the United States' push to produce more chips domestically.
“If this gets disrupted by this hare-brained scheme of the President—to tariff everything, everywhere—it could significantly damage this great thing we've got going on in Arizona.”
The senator also criticized Trump’s broader trade policies, calling them damaging to economic stability.
“When you see the President’s policies wildly swinging back and forth, it’s not the way to run a government.”
In addition to the potential tariffs on Mexico and Canada, Trump on Wednesday also proposed a 25% tariff on global steel and aluminum imports, a move that could further impact Arizona’s manufacturing sector.
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