Josh Shapiro says ‘people will suffer’ and Pa. Republicans have mixed views of Trump’s tariff plan

With President Donald Trump announcing a new round of tariffs that could spark a global trade war on Wednesday, at least one Republican lawmaker from Pennsylvania expressed skepticism about the president’s plan.

U.S. Rep. Mike Kelly, a Republican from Butler County, owned and operated Kelly Automotive — a group of auto dealerships in Butler — for years before joining Congress. Given car parts are made all over the world, Kelly said, he was unclear how Trump’s tariffs would work.

“I’ve done it all my life and when I look at it, how do you break this out? Because the supply chain is global, right?” Kelly told The Inquirer on Capitol Hill on Wednesday. “So if a Chevy truck is assembled in some other part of the world, and a Korean car is assembled here, I mean, it’s like, wait a minute, I don’t know how you do it. I don’t know how he’ll slice it up, or how it’s gonna dice it up.”

“It’s not like, ‘Oh, it’s a Toyota, then it’s a foreign car,‘” Kelly added. “No, it’s not. Not anymore.”

For Pennsylvania, which is not a major auto-manufacturing hub, Kelly anticipates the impact of auto tariffs will be on consumers.

“When you have different inventory on the same shelf before tariffs and after tariffs, and it’s the same car but different pricing, yeah, that causes a lot of confusion,” Kelly said.

The skepticism was somewhat rare coming from Kelly, a solid Trump ally who led the congressional task force investigating the assassination attempt against the then-presidential candidate in Kelly’s hometown, Butler. His questions about how auto tariffs might work have not detracted from his support for Trump.

“He’s the greatest disrupter ever to sit in the White House,” Kelly said.

In an interview Tuesday on Fox News Radio, Sen. Dave McCormick (R., Pa.) admitted that uncertainty around Trump’s tariff plan was roiling the stock market, but said he was supportive of the president’s desire to rebalance foreign trade.

“I think the greatest imbalance is probably around manufacturing businesses, because what happens is they’re subsidized in China and other places,” McCormick said. “I think we want to bring home that manufacturing. The steel tariffs, the aluminum tariffs are meant to level the playing field.”

McCormick said his greatest concern is around U.S. manufacturing capabilities when it comes to pharmaceuticals and semiconductors, which were exposed during the peak of the pandemic.

“We learned during COVID that we’re dependent on other countries for the large majority of semiconductors,” McCormick said.

Speaking at an event touting local breweries in Bethlehem on Wednesday, Gov. Josh Shapiro slammed Trump’s tariff plan as a tax hike that would “harm” consumers and small businesses.

“I’m not sure why the president of the United States wants to do this to our small businesses, wants to harm our main streets,” Shapiro said, warning that “people will suffer” and promising the support of state government to help local businesses.

Shapiro pointed to the impact on craft breweries in Pennsylvania, which turn to Canada to source the aluminum in their cans and the malted barley they use to brew their beer. Those that source their materials locally have still seen their costs go up due to growing demand as companies pivot to avoid Trump’s tariffs, Shapiro said.

“I just wish the president wasn’t working against us as recklessly as he is,” Shapiro said. “This tariff war that he is starting, this button that he is pushing, is going to have one effect, and that effect is to drive up costs on consumers and businesses throughout Pennsylvania at a time where we can’t afford it.”

Other Pennsylvania Democrats joined Shapiro in denouncing Trump’s plan.

“Trump’s ill-advised tariff actions tomorrow will release a new wave of price hikes on hard-working families in PA & beyond,” U.S. Rep. Dwight Evans, a Democrat who represents parts of Philadelphia, wrote on social media Tuesday. “He expects to raise trillions of dollars through these taxes on YOU, as Republicans in Congress look for ways to fund another tax cut for the rich.”

Sen. John Fetterman (D., Pa.) has not spoken recently about Trump’s tariff plan, but did publicly criticize the president’s combative approach on trade toward Canada and Mexico.

“Truthfully, I don’t understand why President Trump is picking all of these kinds of tariffs with our allies,” Fetterman said during an interview on MSNBC last month. “And there might be issues like fentanyl or some of those, but that doesn’t mean we have to punch them in the mouth, because that’s not making America great.”

Other Republicans on Capitol Hill offered more wait-and-see caution ahead of Trump’s announcement.

“I’m very excited and anxious to see what comes out,” said U.S. Rep. Rob Bresnahan, who represents Lackawanna County. “There’s just a lot of uncertainty as to what it will ultimately mean to the end user. But I don’t want to get out in front of my skis until we see actually what’s going to be talked about.”

U.S. Rep. Ryan Mackenzie, a Republican who represents the Lehigh Valley, said he has heard from some constituents concerned about the impact of Trump’s tariffs, but said many businesses have started bracing for the coming change.

“I heard from one business yesterday that they started changing their supply chains and moving things around in potential anticipation of something like this,” Mackenzie said.

“So I know there is volatility in the market, and I think that leads to then uncertainty of what products does it apply to and at what rate. But at the same time, a lot of people have already been anticipating something like this.”

U.S. Rep. Dan Meuser, a Republican who represents Luzerne County and a longtime Trump ally, defended the tariffs even if there are some up-front price pains.

“The whole idea is to create a more fair marketplace around the world, and, frankly, more stability,” Meuser said, noting there could be growing pains.

“I’m not guaranteeing it’s going to work out perfectly,” Meuser said, “but I think the president’s got enough information and [Commerce Secretary] Howard Lutnick, and the others involved here, to do it in a manner, a tariff plan that is far more favorable to the United States than it is to other countries.”