Senate Republicans acknowledge that the president’s latest tariff increase on Chinese imports are harming farm state economies, their own constituents and some of Trump’s most reliable voters. But there’s no plan to stop, or even threaten, the president’s tariff regime — just the latest example of Trump imposing his protectionist will on a party that once celebrated free trade.

As the stock market tanked on Monday following the escalating conflict with China, Republicans lamented the state of affairs. But after trying, unsuccessfully, to get the president to remove his year-old tariffs on U.S. allies, there’s little appetite for opening a new front with Trump when it comes to China…

On Monday, Grassley admitted that Congress has ceded too much power to the White House on trade, but the Iowa Republican declined to say whether his committee would do anything about it. He offered the gentlest of guidance to Trump, urging him to work with allies on the China fight, and ordered China “to get real.”