U.S. Sen. Husted disagrees with Trump on tariffs

U.S. Sen. Jon Husted, R-Ohio, has offered some slight opposition to President Donald Trump’s tariffs, as Americans, including Ohioans, make the state of the economy the central issue in the 2026 election.

Husted disagreed with Trump’s proposed tariffs for the first time during an interview with Morgan Trau of News 5 Cleveland.

“Tariffs are an interesting challenge,” he said. “I’m typically not in favor of anything that would be a tax or a tariff or something like that.”

While slightly opposing the tariffs, Husted also defended Trump, saying the tariffs would prevent China and other countries from taking advantage of Americans.

“Tariffs are part of the leverage for that, but I hope that these issues get settled soon, and I would like, if there are going to be any tariffs, that they’d be as low as possible,” he said.

Before this interview, Husted was on the same page on tariffs, going so far as to defend the policy and vote for every major Trump agenda item in the Senate.

After almost a year in the Oval Office, Trump continues to blame former President Joe Biden for the state of the American economy. Husted agreed with Trump during the interview, saying that the former administration created “the inflationary problem.”

“What we’re trying to do is lift people’s wages up — got to catch up to where they were under the Biden administration’s terrible policies that drove inflationary prices up,” he said.

However, according to the news source, Americans – especially small business owners – are negatively impacted by tariffs. Goldman Sachs and JPMorgan also reportedly criticized Trump’s tariff policy.

Democratic Senate candidate Sherrod Brown also said that Ohio businesses suffer from tariffs, not from other countries, criticizing his political opponent, Husted.

“You heard the problems around here with tariffs — that it means their prices, their costs go up and down, but what they pay continues to go up,” Brown said. “Jon Husted has not spoken out against those tariffs or done anything about them.”

Husted officially filed to run for reelection next year on Dec. 12, after previously reminding Ohioans that Trump endorsed him, hoping to increase his chances of reelection.

Husted’s recent opposition to Trump’s tariffs could be explained by his desire to distance himself from Trump on the issue, who is currently not favorable among Americans when it comes to the economic state of the country, according to the polls conducted by the Associated Press-NORC Center for Public Affairs Research and the Marist Poll.