‘folks Are Nervous’: Congress And K St Expect Trump To Come Out Firing After Midterms

Voters are expected to send a very clear message on Tuesday that they want the U.S. to stop fighting wars — on the military and economic front. President Donald Trump is unlikely to listen.

Trump still wants to bring tariffs close to where they stood before the Supreme Court struck down a broad swath of them in February, according to nine current and former officials, congressional aides and industry representatives. He has teed up trade measures that could lead to new duties in the weeks after the election. The Pentagon, meanwhile, has been sending more forces to the Middle East, and Trump has been hinting that more action is coming in Iran.

Republican and industry officials don’t believe the president is going to slow his agenda because of a poor showing by his party in the midterms. If anything, he may speed it up.

“The possibility is that it could actually get worse, be more tumultuous, more unpredictable and higher tariffs,” said one industry lobbyist, who, like others quoted in this article, were granted anonymity to speak candidly.

Many Republicans want the party to take away the opposite message from next week’s elections, where they are expected to take a beating over the economy and Americans' concerns about affordability. Trump’s new actions could not only trigger Main Street angst, but could also sink stock markets and drive oil prices even higher, with impacts that are likely to reverberate not just in the next Congress but in the 2028 contest for president.

An additional round of levies after the election would be exactly the wrong lesson, one House Republican said, noting that if any Midwest Republicans eke out wins at this point, it will be “in spite” of Trump’s tariffs

A White House official said in a statement that “any tariff announcements will come directly from the Administration. Until then, any discussion or reporting about tariffs and tariff rates should be regarded as baseless speculation.” The White House did not respond to separate questions on its post-midterm plans for Iran.

The president’s political window for achieving some of his most polarizing objectives is fairly narrow, according to three of the people who spoke to POLITICO for this story.

GOP candidates in competitive midterm races in border states have already sought to distance themselves from Trump’s renewed trade war with Canada that flared up in August, after trade talks between Washington and Ottawa broke down.

“The tariffs are hammering us,” said one Republican in Michigan, where GOP Senate candidate Mike Rogers and gubernatorial candidate John James are battling for open seats.

The spike in gas prices since the U.S. and Israel launched attacks on Iran in the spring also has been a drag on Republican candidates, both in rural areas, where steep diesel prices have created new headaches for farmers, and among drivers in the suburbs. Oil prices have remained elevated despite the White House pause in strikes this fall and a rebound in Middle East crude flows, Goldman Sachs analysts noted this week. If active fighting flares back up, they would only surge higher.

Trump’s first-term Commerce Secretary Wilbur Ross predicted the president would be unfazed by a further increase in gas prices after the midterms wrap. “It will cause controversy and will cause criticism, but it doesn't have a direct, immediate, political effect,” he said. “It frees them up.”

But it’s likely to alarm many members of his party as the 2028 primaries gear up next year and the post-Trump political landscape comes into view.

“After the midterms, there's going to be some Republican senators who are like, ‘Okay, I'm going to outlast Trump now,’” a former GOP aide said.

Some Republicans, on the other hand, think Trump — and Congress — should go even further.

“The president has done an amazing job using the tool that he has, but he hasn't had all the tools at his disposal,” Sen. Bernie Moreno (R-Ohio) said in an interview. “ We have them in Congress, and so I'm hoping that we do that and put those tariffs in place as a permanent part of our laws.”

The administration appears to be preparing to move with or without lawmakers’ support.

“The president has a lot of powers, even if we lose the House or the Senate,” said a senior administration official, who, like others, was granted anonymity because they are not authorized to speak to the media.

The Pentagon could be in position to launch new attacks in the Middle East in a matter of weeks. The USS Theodore Roosevelt carrier strike group left port in Japan Oct. 19 and will likely arrive in the region by the end of November, according to a U.S. defense official. More than 2,000 Marines are also on the way from the Pacific to the Middle East.

The Pentagon and State Department have also pulled some staff out of the region, echoing the run-up to the February U.S. and Israeli bombing campaign against Iran and adding to speculation that they may re-escalate the war.

The administration also delayed a number of trade measures this summer and fall, which it could roll out at any time after the Nov. 3 elections.

U.S. Trade Representative Jamieson Greer is preparing to publish the results of an investigation into 16 trading partners’ manufacturing overcapacity, paving the way for new tariffs on major economies including China and the European Union. The report has been delayed multiple times, in part because of the elections, according to four people familiar with the planning.

A USTR official pointed to that trade investigation when asked about plans to roll out more tariffs. “The Administration will continue implementing policies that level the playing field for American workers, ranchers, and businesses and the livelihoods of all Americans,” the official said in a statement.

The Commerce Department, meanwhile, is sitting on a trade investigation into health equipment and medical devices that was due to be completed in September and could result in higher tariffs. The administration punted on two other probes — one into industrial machinery and robotics, and one on wind turbines — earlier this month, but could come back and hike duties in a matter of months. Officials are required to report back to the president within 180 days on any new developments.

The administration has other tariff powers it’s still deciding how to use. The Russia sanctions bill Congress passed in September also gave the president broad new tariff powers, which he waived in mid-October, while preserving the ability to levy duties of up to 100% in the future. A former GOP aide argued that whether the administration acts on its new tariff abilities largely depends on the state of trade negotiations with India, which could be hit under the new law because it is a major buyer of Russian oil.

“They'll save it,” the former aide said of the tariff powers. “If they get an India deal, I think they'll probably be held off.”

The Russia sanctions law would also give Trump the power to hike tariffs on China, another major Russian energy buyer. China and the U.S. agreed earlier this fall to extend a trade truce until early January, but they continue to struggle to resolve key differences over high-tech export restrictions, rare earth access and other issues.

Manufacturers have used the last few months of relative trade policy stability to build up inventories, said Kip Eideberg, senior vice president of government and industry relations at the Association of Equipment Manufacturers, which represents construction and agricultural equipment producers.

“That tells you that folks are nervous,” Eideberg said.

Daniel Lippman and Daniel Desrochers also contributed to this story.