Trump’s escalation of fight with Canada puts GOP Senate candidates in a vice

President Trump’s escalation of the trade war with Canada is coming at a bad time for Senate Republican candidates, who are being put in the awkward place of having to defend the administration’s economic record while having to push back against Trump’s targeting of critical Canadian imports and companies.

Trump got pushback from a loyal Senate ally Monday when Sen. Roger Marshall (R-Kan.) called out the president’s threat to ban Bombardier, the Canadian jet maker, from selling planes in the U.S., putting hundreds of jobs in Wichita at risk.

“I’m going to fight to keep Bombardier’s over 1,200 Kansas jobs. I’ve already taken that concern inside the Oval Office,” Marshall posted on X, the social media platform, Tuesday.

The Canadian aerospace company’s stock dropped more than 2 percentage points Tuesday after Trump declared it would not be able to sell planes to the U.S. market unless they build planes in the U.S. “and stop treating America like a ‘piggybank.’”

The vulnerable Kansas GOP incumbent spoke out after pastor Adam Hamilton, his Democratic challenger, accused him of being “silent” and not standing up to Trump.

“The decision to ban Bombardier from selling in the U.S. is a direct attack on Kansas workers and Kansas jobs — yet Roger Marshall is notably silent,” Hamilton posted on X Sunday.

“We cannot allow this chaotic economic policy to continue to hurt Kansans; they deserve so much better. As your Senator, I will always stand up for Kansas workers,” he vowed.

Marshall, however, tried to walk a fine line by appearing to endorse Trump’s effort to pressure Bombardier to transfer manufacturing capacity to the U.S.

“We agree on the mission: bring more good-paying manufacturing jobs back to Wichita. America buys more than half of what Bombardier sells. If that’s the market, more of those planes should be built here,” he argued, trying to temper his pushback on Trump’s threat.

Kansas’s senior Republican senator, Rep. Jerry Moran (R-Kan.) also cautioned Trump against shutting Bombardier, a major employer in his home state, out of the U.S. market.

“The presence of Bombardier in Wichita supports a local workforce of more than a thousand employees, who contribute their talent and expertise to our nation’s defense and aerospace capabilities,” Moran warned.

“I reached out to the Trump administration to make certain the President is aware of the significant contributions of Bombardier to Kansas and the importance of its presence in Wichita to many Kansas workers at Bombardier and in the Bombardier supply chain,” he added.

Republican strategists say Trump’s decision to escalate the fight with Canada comes at an inconvenient moment for vulnerable GOP candidates who are trying to defend Trump’s economic record as the polls give the president poor marks on handling costs and inflation.

“Reigniting a trade war with Canada over any company is not a good idea right before the election,” said Brian Darling, a GOP strategist and former Senate aide. “You have a situation where America imports quite a few different goods from Canada, including lumber that builds houses.”

He warned that targeting Bombardier, which employs more than 3,000 employees across the country, “doesn’t make sense” because “it may end up hurting in-cycle Republicans.”

“We’re going to be looking at an election where there are some very close races and some races that weren’t expected to be close and something like this issue may become a tie-breaker,” he warned.

Kansas is one of those states where the Democratic Senate nominee is running a more competitive race than most political handicappers would have predicted at the start of the election cycle.

Marshall says he’s not taking victory for granted and predicted that Senate Democratic Leader Chuck Schumer (D-N.Y.) and his allies could wind up pouring $30 million to $40 million into the Kansas Senate race.

“We’re taking nothing for granted. It’s a long time from now until November. Chuck Schumer is going to fund [my opponent] $30, $40 million,” he said.

Several recent Democratic-sponsored polls show the contest between Marshall and his Democratic opponent is a neck-and-neck race.

A Global Strategy Group poll conducted of 800 likely Kansas voters from Aug. 12 to Aug. 16 found Hamilton leading Marshall 44 percent to 43 percent. The survey, which had a margin of error of plus or minus 3.5 points, showed Marshall with a 40 percent positive job rating and 50 percent negative rating.

The non-partisan Cook Political Report still rates Kansas as a “likely” Republican win.

Marshall acknowledged that the high cost of living is a major issue in his race.

“People are absolutely locked in on the cost of living right now, despite a strong economy,” he said.

He said the cost of housing, health care, childcare and property insurance increased by 50 percent under former President Biden.

“People are absolutely struggling with the cost of living back home,” he said.

A second Republican strategist who requested anonymity to discuss the political impact of Trump’s escalation of the trade fight with Canada says the standoff with a major trading partner comes at an inopportune moment for vulnerable GOP incumbents and embattled candidates.

“With the Canadian trade war, it’s unpopular in a lot of states that touch the border,” said the strategist.

The GOP operative defended the president for trying to address what Trump and many Republicans view as inequalities in the U.S.-Canada trade relationship but warned the latest escalation with Bombardier comes at a bad time, less than two months before Election Day.

“There’s a lot of trade issues with Canada. There are in any major trading relationship. For whatever reason, this is the fight the president has chosen to champion and a lot of people who have done business with Canada are appreciative of it,” the source said.

But the strategist warned the trade fight could become a problem in several key races.

“There are obviously political considerations with Bombardier and Kansas where we’ve got a B-tier Senate race. But if everything goes sideways, everything could become an A-tier Senate race,” the strategist added.

“It’s bad for Susan Collins and it’s bad for Roger Marshall,” the source said, referring to Sen. Susan Collins (R-Maine), who faces a tough re-election race in a state that voted for former Vice President Harris in the 2024 presidential election.

The strategist said the escalation of the trade fight with Canada could also impact the Michigan Senate race — though how the issue plays out in the Wolverine State is more complicated because of the strength of unions, which traditionally have favored more protectionist policies.

Canada imposed retaliatory tariffs on $27.6 billion in American products on Tuesday after Trump slapped $20 billion worth of Canadian imports with 50-percent tariffs last month.

Collins, like Marshall, has been caught in the middle of Trump’s trade war with Canada, something that his given her Democratic opponent, former state Sen. Troy Jackson, political ammo.

The Maine Republican emphasized her opposition to Trump’s tariffs during a recent campaign trail appearance.

“There’s no one who has been more vocal than I have against Canadian tariffs,” she told reporters. “I voted against them on the Senate floor months ago when the president was first proposing that there be tariffs.

“I have talked to the special trade representative in Washington, Jamieson Greer, for a half hour about the exact impact on the state of Maine,” she added. “Take something like road salt, we get all of our road salt from Canada,” warning that tariffs could increase road salt costs for some small towns by as much as $10,000 a year.

Amy Fried, a professor emerita of political science at the University of Maine, said Trump’s trade war is likely to have an effect on Maine’s economy and the competitive Senate race.

“Maine and Canada have had very close relations over the years,” she said. “There’s a lot of different ways in which the Maine and the Canadian economies have intersected. It affected the lumber industry, there have been fisheries issues, a lot of tourism back and forth.”

“A lot of Maine people feel and attachment to Canada and have benefited from those relationships and Sen. Collins is trying to separate herself from it by saying she doesn’t approve of the tariffs but Troy Jackson is also talking about it,” she said, adding that the Democrat is trying to “tie Trump’s actions to Collins.”

“Clearly the economy in Maine is affected by tariffs,” she said, noting that Canadian tourism, a major economic driver in Maine, has dropped off during Trump’s trade war.