WASHINGTON — Republican U.S. Senate candidate Mike Rogers appears to be breaking with President Donald Trump on another key issue less than a month before Election Day.

“Drinking a Labatt and watching the Red Wings, man, it just doesn’t get any more Michigan than that,” Rogers said in a new ad released Oct. 7. “Here in Michigan, we know that Canada is not our enemy. We need to end this tariff war now.”

The statement marks the second time in recent weeks that Rogers spoke out — without criticizing Trump by name — against one of the president’s unpopular initiatives. This time, Rogers is calling for an end to Trump’s widespread trade war against Canada, America’s second-biggest trading partner, while drinking a Canadian beer that’s banned from import under the president’s latest trade restrictions.

The Republican Senate nominee also split with Trump on the Iran war in late September, saying it “needs to end and end quickly.”

Rogers’ public shift on tariffs comes amid mounting opposition in Michigan to Trump’s tariffs and GOP concerns that voters will reject their candidates up and down the ballot for failing to address cost-of-living concerns. Election Day is Nov. 3, though more than 200,000 Michiganians have already cast absentee ballots.

Trump in recent weeks has derisively called Canadian Prime Minister Mark Carney “governor,” labeled Canadian officials “nasty” and has complained that Canada is “one of the worst countries in the world to deal with,” among other insults.

“They want to have a deal with us. They call us all the time. The problem is that they’ve treated the United States very unfairly,” the Republican president told reporters in late September.

Republican Senate hopeful Rogers debuted the ad the day before he is set to face off in his first debate against Democratic nominee Abdul El-Sayed in Grand Rapids. The 30-second spot features Rogers wearing a flannel shirt and sitting at a bar stool at Bigg’s Bar & Grill on Gratiot Avenue in Chesterfield Township.

A year ago, Rogers accused Democrats of “fear mongering” over Trump’s tariffs, and said the president’s tariff policy had “put the American people back in the driver’s seat.”

“President Trump is right to put America First, and tariffs are necessary when countries cheat American workers. But trade isn’t one-size-fits-all,” Rogers posted on social media on Aug. 29.

In an interview last month, Rogers again defended some of Trump’s global tariffs and argued they had helped bring some manufacturing back to the U.S., pointing to General Motors Co.’s decision to move production of the Chevy Silverado pickup truck from Mexico to its Orion Township assembly plant.

Rogers did acknowledge that the tariffs against Canada are going to pinch Michigan consumers and said his team had conversations with the Trump administration about them.

“This is why you want to send somebody back (to Washington) who can have a conversation about what’s working for Michigan and what might not work for Michigan, if you send somebody back that all they want to do is get on TikTok and talk about President Trump, we’re not going to fix up one single problem,” Rogers told The Detroit News.

“But if you send a guy like me back, we’re going to have this conversation.”

El-Sayed to Rogers: ‘You’re flip-flopping’ on Canadian tariffs

Democratic nominee Abdul El-Sayed, by contrast, has frequently bashed Trump and Rogers over the ongoing trade war with Michigan’s international neighbor, calling the Canadian tariffs “chaotic” and costly.

El-Sayed on Wednesday accused Rogers of flip-flopping again.

“Must have had one too many of those LaBatts, Mike. You cheerled this tariff war from the beginning and you’re flip-flopping now because your poll numbers are in free fall,” El-Sayed posted on X.com in response to Rogers’ ad.

“Donald is the reason we’re in a trade war. And he’s the reason you’re running. Not a serious person.”

El-Sayed at an August campaign event said that Canadians “are the only people I know who will preemptively apologize for something they never did … You gotta be an a—— to pick a trade war with Canada. I’m so sorry, like, they’re like the nicest people on Earth.”

A Detroit News/WDIV-TV (Channel 4) poll conducted just before Labor Day found that less than one-third (29%) of 600 likely general election voters in Michigan approve of Trump’s decision to impose 50% tariffs on $20 billion worth of Canadian goods, including cement, wine, dairy and hockey sticks.

Nearly two-thirds (64%) said they disapprove, according to the survey conducted by the Lansing-based Glengariff Group polling firm Aug. 31 to Sept. 3. The poll has a margin of error of plus or minus four percentage points.

The overwhelming majority of Democratic (93%) and independent (73%) poll participants opposed the tariffs, while most Republicans support them — though there is division within the GOP. About 1 in 4 (24%) of base GOP voters disapprove.

“There is just wholesale opposition to these tariffs,” pollster Richard Czuba said of the poll results. “And what really stands out to me is Michiganders understand the financial impact of these tariffs on them.”

About 62% of respondents said Trump’s tariffs on Canada are bad for Michigan’s economy, with 17% saying the tariffs are good. That split is especially pronounced among independent voters, who tend to play a major role in who wins and loses in Michigan elections and 70% of whom said the Canadian tariffs are bad for the state’s economy.

Nearly 72% of the likely Michigan voters said the Canadian tariffs would cause an increase in what they pay for goods, according to the poll results.

What other Michigan Republicans are saying about Trump’s trade war with Canada

Some elected Republicans in Michigan have expressed a desire for the Trump administration and Canadian officials to resolve the trade conflict, but they have stopped short of criticizing the president directly.

Republican U.S. Rep. John James, who is running for governor, in an Oct. 6 debate said he’s called the Trump administration, specifically talking with the trade ambassador “and saying that we must get back to the table, stop acting like children, and negotiate a reciprocal, fair, and mutually beneficial arrangement to make sure that we can bring our jobs back and protect our industry.”

U.S. House hopeful Michael Bouchard of Rochester Hills, a Republican running for James’ vacant 10th District seat, said he’d like to see Trump’s tariffs on Canadian imports end.

“I don’t think our trade conflict with Canada is where we should be focusing a lot of our effort,” Bouchard said Oct. 7 in an interview on The Detroit News’ Political Insider podcast. “Everybody in Michigan knows Canadians. They’re friends with Canada. It’s 30 minutes from here to Canada.”

Bouchard distinguished his remarks on Canadian tariffs from his support for Trump’s global tariffs against China and other countries that are needed to “make sure that Americans are put in a position to succeed.

“But this tariffs on Canada stuff, I’ve been pretty blunt about that from the beginning,” Bouchard said.

GOP U.S. Rep. Tom Barrett of Charlotte, who is locked in a tough reelection fight in his mid-Michigan district, told CNN on Sept. 9 that he’s advocating for “cooler heads to prevail” in what he called a “tit for tat” back-and-forth between the U.S. and Canada.

“I want to see us get to a point where we can have mutually beneficial trade arrangements with Canada,” Barrett said.

“I’m still hopeful that we’ll get there, but that has been my advocacy ― both publicly and behind the scenes ― so that we can move in that direction. And I think it’s going to take movement by both sides, the United States and Canada, to get to a mutual arrangement.”

The former state lawmaker suggested on CNN that tariffs should be narrowly tailored to balance “anomalies” within U.S. trade arrangements. Barrett pointed to Canada’s long-standing tariffs on U.S. dairy products, a policy designed to protect its country’s milk, cheese and butter producers from competition.

Barrett said dairy farmers in his district are struggling to make market margins “in no small part because Canada has really manipulated their market there.”

U.S. Rep. John Moolenaar, a Caledonia Republican, said last month that he is hoping for an end to the ongoing U.S.-Canada trade dispute, calling some of the negotiations so far counterproductive.

“Unfortunately, what normally is a civil private negotiation working towards agreements has spilled into some name-calling and some things that haven’t been as productive as I’d like,” Moolenaar said during a telephone town hall on Sept. 1.

“Quite frankly, we’ve got some work ahead of us,” Moolenaar added. “Canada is an important trading partner, and my goal is to see this resolved in a constructive way.”

gschwab@detroitnews.com

mburke@detroitnews.com

This article originally appeared on The Detroit News: Rogers shifts gears, calls for end to Trump’s ‘tariff war’ with Canada

Reporting by Grant Schwab and Melissa Nann Burke, The Detroit News / The Detroit News

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