Chris Van Hollen
Senator for Maryland · Democratic · United States
“Congressional Record, Volume 172 Issue 115 (Wednesday, July 15, 2026) [Congressional Record Volume 172, Number 115 (Wednesday, July 15, 2026)] [Senate] [Page S4105] From the Congressional Record Online through the Government Publishing Office [ www.gpo.gov ] TRIBUTE TO COLONEL YOLANDA D. GORE Mr. VAN HOLLEN. Mr.”
“Congressional Record, Volume 172 Issue 115 (Wednesday, July 15, 2026) [Congressional Record Volume 172, Number 115 (Wednesday, July 15, 2026)] [Senate] [Page S4105] From the Congressional Record Online through the Government Publishing Office [ www.gpo.gov ] TRIBUTE TO COLONEL YOLANDA D. GORE Mr. VAN HOLLEN. Mr.”
“She brought modernization to Fort Meade and the surrounding community by implementing a barracks renovation project, helping break ground on a child development center, and reforming physical security across the installation.”
“She brought modernization to Fort Meade and the surrounding community by implementing a barracks renovation project, helping break ground on a child development center, and reforming physical security across the installation.”
“She earned a bachelor's degree in family and consumer science business and later went on to earn a master of arts in leadership and management from Webster University and a master of arts in strategic studies from the Army War College.”
“She earned a bachelor's degree in family and consumer science business and later went on to earn a master of arts in leadership and management from Webster University and a master of arts in strategic studies from the Army War College.”
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“I heard the chairman of the Finance Committee speaking a little bit earlier about how the proceeds from collecting tariffs might be counted and used to offset tax cuts which are going to be aimed at the very, very wealthy in this country--tax relief for the wealthy paid for in part by a national sales tax on all the other Americans in the country; paid for, as we have heard, by going after Medicaid. So whether it is a national sales tax or other efforts aimed at the American people that will hurt the American people and hit them in the pocketbooks, that is all done in service to pay for tax cuts for the very wealthy, people like Elon Musk.”
“Of course, we should be addressing the fentanyl crisis in the United States of America, and this Congress has done a lot. It needs to do a lot more. But in the fight against fentanyl, the Canadian people are, No. 1, our allies, and No. 2, they are not the ones who are causing the problem. Only 0.2 percent of fentanyl trafficked into the United States comes across the U.S.-Canadian border, and Canada is right now putting together a $1.3 billion plan to strengthen that border security and stop it altogether. So this is a fake emergency declared by the President, putting on these massive tariffs. I will close with why, and we are going to find out more about this in the next couple of days.”
“Finally, I do want to talk to the other part of this issue--and I am not going to belabor the point because others have spoken to it eloquently, especially the chief sponsor of this effort, Senator Kaine--which is that President Trump is abusing the International Economic Emergency Powers Act to apply these tariffs to Canada. That is a law aimed at protecting our national security. It is a law that we have used against adversaries like Iran, Sudan, North Korea, and Russia. But here, President Trump is using it to target our longtime friend, our longtime ally Canada. He has declared a phony ``emergency'' on our northern border to target our friends there. He claims that these punitive tariffs will somehow address the fentanyl crisis.”
“So buying a house, buying a car--these are all things that families save toward. So what this comes down to is a tax on the American dream. These increased costs may not mean a lot to the billionaires in the President's Cabinet. After all, we had the Secretary of Commerce say recently with respect to Social Security benefits that, hey, if Americans didn't get their Social Security benefits one week, nobody would notice except the fraudsters. That is the kind of attitude we have from this administration when it comes to increasing prices that we will all experience as a result of these tariffs. They think people won't notice, but they will.”
“That is a whopping sales tax. The National Association of Home Builders says that tariffs will make new homes cost up to 10,000 more, at a time when we are already facing an affordable housing crisis. North America's Building Trades Unions sent a letter opposing these tariffs, saying: We are seeing construction projects slowing down, infrastructure investments being delayed, and economic momentum weakening--resulting in smaller paychecks, fewer jobs, and shrinking opportunities for skilled building trades and workers. A researcher at Cornell University said that a new car could cost up to $20,000 more because of all the back-and-forth across borders and all the additional tariffs that are applied each time a border is crossed. U.S.-made cars are estimated to increase by up to $3,000.”
“Look, we all recognize that tariffs can be an effective tool when they are used in a targeted way with strategic industries, but that is not what Donald Trump is doing. This is not strategic. He is starting an all-out trade war and apparently does not care about the consequences. It is leading already to chaos in the markets. I am not going to go through all those because Senator Warner, Senator Kaine, and others have spoken to that. But at the end of the day, the direction we are heading could well take us into a recession. As Senator Warner mentioned, some of the President's people have said this is going to be $6 trillion worth of tariffs over the next 10 years--by far the largest effective tax hike in American history. Economists estimate that it will cost the typical American household up to $4,200 more per year.”
“We saw a little miniversion of this during the first Trump administration. Back then, Donald Trump raised tariffs on Chinese products, and China responded with retaliatory tariffs on many American farm exports like wheat, soybeans, and pork. What happened? Well, American farmers sold less of those products overseas. They got more expensive. Do you know how we know this was all a big fake-out? When American farmers were not able to sell their products into China's market because of China's retaliatory tariffs, we bailed them out--we the American taxpayer. We spent $23 billion in taxpayer money from the American people to pay American farmers not to be more productive--they were productive--but because China raised tariffs on their products in retaliation for Donald Trump raising tariffs on theirs.”
“On top of that, it is a double whammy because when you have these big tariff increases on products from other countries, other countries aren't just going to sit back and take it. They are going to respond. They are going to retaliate. They are going to put tariffs on American products that we export to their countries. What will happen then? That means that an American producer exporting [[Page S2132]] products overseas, whether manufactured products or agricultural products, their products are going to face higher prices in those countries. They will be less competitive, and people in those countries will buy less of those American products. So that means, here at home, they will have to lay off workers. It is going to hurt the economy back home in both those ways.”
“It is a sales tax on goods imported from other countries. American importers pay the tax at the border, and they pass the cost on to the consumers. What else are they supposed to do? American manufacturers that put together products here in the United States but import some of the parts they use in those products will face higher costs, higher prices on the parts they import. They are going to have to pass on those costs to American consumers, so they are going to have to jack up their prices. When they jack up their prices, not only do American consumers pay more, but those American manufacturers and American producers, when they are exporting goods overseas, they are having to export at higher prices, and that makes their products less competitive overseas.”
“It is a national sales tax day because that will be the result of the President's action--a sales tax on the American people, a national sales tax, because today the President announced he was levying massive, across-the-board tariffs on countless goods, making big promises but at the end of the day betraying the American people, who are going to be hit hard by rising prices. We have heard the President make a lot of promises about what these tariffs will do. It is like a miracle cure. They are going to revive American manufacturing. They are going to stop fentanyl. They are going to balance our budget. They are going to make all of us rich, and all of those other countries are going to pay for it. The problem is, none of that is true. Other countries don't pay these tariffs; we do.”
“Mr. President, I want to start by thanking our colleagues from Virginia, starting with Senator Kaine, who brought us to this debate here on the Senate floor today on a very important question, and to my other colleague from across the Potomac River from Maryland, Senator Warner. We sometimes disagree on various issues. On this, we have solidarity across the Potomac River. That unity comes from a very simple result, which is that we are here to sound the alarm about the trade war that Donald Trump just unleashed today. He calls it ``Liberation Day.'' If he had made this announcement yesterday, on April Fools' Day, people would have thought it was an April Fools' joke. But this is no joke, and it is not liberation day.”