Senator Thom Tillis (R-NC) delivered a blunt assessment of President Donald Trump's tariff regime on Monday, declaring that the administration's "Liberation Day" tariffs had failed and naming Commerce Secretary Howard Lutnick as the official responsible.

"We've got 71 days, and right now we don't have a positive message to sell farm country, and we haven't since Liberation Day last year, which is why I was concerned," Tillis told reporters, referring to the barrage of tariffs Trump levied against countries around the world early in his second term. "That's exactly why I asked whose throat I got to choke if Liberation Day failed last year, and it failed. And that person is Howard Lutnick, and these people that are micromanaging this economy need to figure that out."

Lutnick, a decades-long ally of Trump, is regarded as the chief architect of the president's tariff policies, having argued that the approach would reshore manufacturing and increase national revenue. Those claims have not panned out. Manufacturing jobs have plunged since the much-touted "Liberation Day" (Newsweek), and the economy has suffered more broadly. The Supreme Court ultimately declared most of the tariffs illegal, and the government was forced to refund the tariffs collected back to companies. Lutnick's son has since faced accusations that he has been profiting handsomely as his hedge fund buys up the rights to tariff refunds (Fortune).

Tillis's frustration comes on the heels of Trump's decision to slap Canada with a new battery of tariffs, effectively launching a trade war. For farm-state Republicans, renewed tariff fights matter not only because of the immediate impact on trade relationships, but because they can quickly spill into export markets and commodity prices that are already politically sensitive. According to reports, in the days leading up to the new tariff announcement, Lutnick had expressed dissatisfaction with the trade deal the two countries were negotiating, until talks broke down on Friday (CBC News).

The senator also voiced skepticism about the administration's approach to another matter, the CLARITY Act, legislation that seeks to strengthen the crypto market and is currently up for debate in Congress. The bill has become a test of whether the White House can help broker a compromise without reopening disputes over ethics language that could determine whether it advances. According to Semafor Congressional Bureau Chief Burgess Everett, Tillis "says it's on trajectory to fail next month" (X).

"If there's no interest in the White House in trying to bridge the gap on the ethics language, it is going to fail," Tillis said (X).

Opponents of the act say it weakens investor protections, opens the potential for money laundering, and lacks protections against insider trading. Trump has argued that aspects of the CLARITY Act should be passed, but he has complained about proposed provisions that would block his family from profiting off it. According to Tillis, Trump's demand that such language be stripped from the bill will likely mean its doom.

Tillis also noted growing concern among Republicans that, with the midterms just around the corner, Trump's economic chaos could mean disaster for the GOP majority. Recent polling shows that most voters believe Democrats are better than Republicans at handling the economy — a dramatic shift from pre-Trump perceptions (The Hill).