Trump Triggers Republican Panic as Midterms Near

Jessica Koscielniak / Reuters Donald Trump is triggering growing alarm inside his own party as his latest trade fight threatens to deepen the cost-of-living squeeze just weeks before the midterms.

After trade talks with Canada collapsed this month, Trump imposed 50 percent tariffs on roughly $20 billion worth of Canadian goods.

Canadian Prime Minister Mark Carney retaliated by doubling existing tariffs on American steel and aluminum while targeting a range of additional U.S. goods, bringing the total value of affected American exports to roughly $20 billion.

Trump has shown little interest in backing down.

Instead, he has attacked Canada on Truth Social, even floating the name “Lake America” for Lake Ontario.

“I deal with many countries, and Canada is easily the most difficult and unreasonable,” he wrote.

The escalating trade war is particularly worrying Republicans in battleground states where voters are already struggling with higher prices as a result of the fallout from Trump’s aggressive trade policies and his deeply unpopular war with Iran, which has led to spikes in energy prices.

Northern states such as Maine and Michigan could be hit, while agriculture-heavy Iowa and North Carolina face risks to the farmers and ranchers who overwhelmingly voted for Trump in 2024.

Farming-dependent counties in the Corn Belt backed Trump by an average of 78 percent in 2024, according to Investigate Midwest .

Polls have already underscored just how deeply the rising cost of living is weighing on Americans.

Fifty-six percent of Americans recently ranked cost-of-living concerns among the country’s top issues, according to a Politico poll.

Even Trump voters are feeling the pinch.

Among Trump’s 2024 voters, 33 percent identified rising prices as one of his second-term failures in a Public First survey.

As a result, Republicans are increasingly worried that voters will punish them for the economic fallout.