Susan Collins calls for tariff truce as trade war emerges as hot issue in Senate races

Susan Collins wants a trade deal with Canada. Shocking development: a senator up for reelection in a state that shares a border, a fishing fleet, and half its lobster supply chain with Canada would like the tariff pain to stop before November. This isn't principle finding her at an inconvenient moment. It's math. Maine feels every dollar of this trade war in a way that, say, a safe-seat senator in Wyoming does not, and Collins knows her voters can do arithmetic too.

That doesn't make her wrong to push for a truce. Tariffs are a tool, not a religion, and if the administration's leverage play with Canada has done its job, there's no shame in cutting the deal and moving on. The point of squeezing an ally on trade was never to squeeze forever. It was to get a better arrangement and then let people get back to business. If Collins is reading her constituents' frustration correctly, that's actually the system working the way it's supposed to.

Where this gets interesting is what it says about the politics underneath the policy. Trade wars used to be an easy applause line for economic nationalists and an easy target for free-trade Republicans. Now it's scrambling Senate races in real time, with vulnerable incumbents in border and agricultural states feeling the squeeze from their own base's trade policy. That's not a crisis. That's accountability, and it's healthy. If the tariffs are working, the administration should be able to say so and hold the line. If they're not, Maine's lobstermen deserve to know why they're still paying for it.