President Trump appears to have turned Democrats into tariff skeptics. Is this just partisan opposition? Perhaps. But Democrats are not just talking about the costs of his tariffs. They are also challenging the presidential powers used to impose them. That points to a potentially more durable realignment in U.S. trade politics, one that rewriting the statutes could help make stick.

On the campaign trail, Democrats are quick to point out that Trump’s tariffs raise costs and undermine “affordability.”No surprise there. Most Americans agree with this view. A January Council on Foreign Relations-Morning Consult poll found that more than 65 percent of respondents believed tariffs made everyday goods less affordable.

But Democrats increasingly take their critique a step further, looking past the tariffs themselves to Trump’s whack-a-mole strategy for preserving them. After the Supreme Court rejected Trump’s use of the International Emergency Economic Powers Act to impose sweeping tariffs, the administration pivoted to other statutes.

But this strategy has also been challenged. In May, the Court of International Trade held that Trump’s 10 percent tariffs exceeded the authority Congress had delegated under Section 122, rejecting the administration’s effort to equate the U.S. trade deficit with the “large and serious” balance of payments problem envisioned by the statute. That decision has been stayed pending appeal.

Trump’s Section 301 “forced labor” tariffs are also under legal review. The Court of International Trade recently questioned whether the government had established the necessary nexus between the conduct of each targeted country and the statutory basis for imposing tariffs. Without that nexus, Section 301 risks becoming a permanent trade war powers authority rather than the targeted remedy Congress enacted.

These cases test the boundaries of the tariff powers Congress delegated to the executive. Democrats are going a step further, asking whether Congress drew those boundaries too broadly.

Sen. Ron Wyden (D-Ore.), ranking member of the Senate Finance Committee, gave the broadest answer in July. His Congressional Trade Powers Reform Act of 2026 would require congressional approval of new presidential tariffs, establish a bipartisan Joint Committee on Tariffs and Trade to review proposed actions, require congressional approval of trade agreements and increase congressional oversight of the Office of the U.S. Trade Representative.

Wyden explicitly described the objective as reversing executive overreach and putting Congress “back in the driver’s seat” on trade. In September, Senate Democrats offered three proposals that push further in that direction.

Sen. Jacky Rosen (D-Nev.) focused on Canada. Her resolution targets Trump’s use of Section 338 of the Tariff Act of 1930 to impose tariffs on Canadian goods. It argues that the duties increase costs for American consumers and businesses, disrupt integrated North American supply chains and invite Canadian retaliation. It calls on Trump to rescind the tariffs.

Rosen and Sens. Kirsten Gillibrand (D-N.Y.), Peter Welch (D-Vt.) and Amy Klobuchar (D-Minn.) expand upon this with their BAD DEAL Act. Rather than reversing the Canada tariffs, their bill would repeal Section 338 itself, nullify presidential actions taken under it and refund duties already collected.

Senate Democratic Leader Chuck Schumer (D-N.Y.) went further still. His End Trump’s Tariff Tax Act would terminate the administration’s Section 301 forced labor tariffs, repeal Sections 122 and 338 and automatically refund duties with interest.

For now, these proposals are political markers. But political markers have a way of becoming policy agendas. And this agenda poses different questions for the two parties.

For Republicans, how much of Trump’s tariff regime are they willing to defend? They’ve been falling back on the argument that tariffs provide negotiating leverage and protect domestic industries. But as courts narrow executive authorities, the middle ground shrinks. Republicans may have to choose between rewriting the statutes to preserve presidential discretion or accepting a larger congressional role.

There are signs of unease among congressional Republicans, some of whom have opposed some Trump tariffs or called for more congressional oversight. After Trump exits the political stage, Phil Gramm and Donald Boudreaux argue Republicans may even revert to their traditional preference for lower tariffs and open markets.

Democrats face the same question. If their principal objection to Trump’s tariffs concerns presidential discretion, clawing back congressional authority may be enough. Tariffs would remain instruments of economic policy, but Congress would exercise much greater control over their use. Court rulings will make that choice harder to avoid.

But if their critique is that tariffs raise prices, increase input costs and disrupt supply chains, the challenge after Trump will be to determine when tariffs remain useful and how to deploy them without reproducing the economic costs Democrats are warning about today.

Trump has scrambled the politics of U.S. trade policy. The question is whether the parties scramble back once Trump leaves office. If they don’t, Trump’s most enduring legacy on trade may be not the tariffs themselves, but the partisan realignment they leave behind.

Marc L. Busch is the Karl F. Landegger Professor of International Business Diplomacy at the Walsh School of Foreign Service, Georgetown University.