The National Farmers Union supports a bill from lawmakers designed to restore congressional review and oversight on tariffs.

The Trade Review Act of 2025 would re-establish limits on the president’s ability to impose unilateral tariffs without the approval of Congress, as outlined in the Constitution. It was introduced April 4 by Sen. Maria Cantwell, D-Wash., and Sen. Chuck Grassley, R-Iowa.

“We need congressional oversight of tariffs and trade policy to ensure measures are thoughtful and positively impact the agriculture economy,” farmers union president Rob Larew said in a press release.

“Family farmers and ranchers are facing historic levels of uncertainty and the recent flurry of tariff announcements, followed by abrupt reversals, has only deepened that volatility,” Larew said. “These actions force our long-standing trading partners to retaliate with tariffs on U.S. agricultural goods and look elsewhere for more affordable products. Once we lose these markets, they’re nearly impossible to win back.”

Larew urged all lawmakers to “stand with family farmers and ranchers” by supporting the act.

‘Runaway train’

Geopolitical analyst Peter Zeihan, who has spoken to Pacific Northwest wheat farmers in several industry meetings, in a newsletter to subscribers compared Trump’s tariffs to a “runaway train,” and said passage of the act is unlikely.

“All standard measures of stopping this ‘train’ are gone,” Zeihan wrote. “Both political parties are fractured. Trump has surrounded himself with loyalists and the traditional policy influencers have been sidelined, while the judiciary doesn’t typically intervene in trade policy.”

Congress does have constitutional authority over tariffs, but that power was ceded to the president through the Trade Act of 1974, Zeihan wrote.
The new act could reclaim it, and require congressional approval of tariffs to remain beyond 60 days, Zeihan said.

“Even if this did make it to Trump’s desk, it would be sent back to the Senate and require a veto-proof majority, which isn’t going to happen any time soon,” Zeihan wrote. “It’s probably going to take red states feeling some significant economic impacts before we can entertain the idea of slowing, much less stopping, this train.”

Vietnam caught in ‘crossfire’

Zeihan said in his newsletter that Vietnam, considered a growing potential market for U.S. agricultural products, got caught up in the tariff “crossfire.”

“Through an arbitrary and poorly informed process, Vietnam was slapped with a 46% tariff,” Zeihan wrote.

Vietnam has been a key ally in reducing U.S. dependence on China, but because they don’t import enough from the U.S. due to the income disparity, the Trump administration installed punitive tariffs, Zeihan said in the newsletter.

“Trump’s team is filled with loyalists that lack any semblance of expertise in their designated areas, so these inflated tariffs are more about pleasing Trump than logic,” Zeihan said. “Which doesn’t make for great economic policy in case you were wondering.”