20250SJR_000796AMD INTRODUCED 2025-05-19 AMENDED_SENATE 2025-06-03 AMENDED_SENATE 2025-07-08 AMENDED_ASSEMBLY 2026-02-26 REVISED 2026-04-20 2025 SJR AMD Introduced by Senator Cervantes (Coauthors: Senators Allen, Archuleta, Blakespear, Caballero, Cortese, Laird, McNerney, Richardson, Stern, and Wahab) (Coauthors: Assembly Members Addis, Aguiar-Curry, Ahrens, Arambula, Ávila Farías, Bains, Bauer-Kahan, Bennett, Berman, Boerner, Bonta, Bryan, Calderon, Caloza, Carrillo, Connolly, Elhawary, Fong, Gabriel, Garcia, Gipson, Mark González, Haney, Harabedian, Hart, Irwin, Jackson, Kalra, Krell, Lee, Lowenthal, McKinnor, Muratsuchi, Nguyen, Ortega, Pacheco, Papan, Patel, Pellerin, Quirk-Silva, Ramos, Ransom, Rivas, Michelle Rodriguez, Rogers, Blanca Rubio, Schiavo, Schultz, Sharp-Collins, Solache, Soria, Stefani, Valencia, Wicks, Wilson, and Zbur) LEAD_AUTHOR SENATE Cervantes COAUTHOR SENATE Allen COAUTHOR SENATE Archuleta COAUTHOR SENATE Blakespear COAUTHOR SENATE Caballero COAUTHOR SENATE Cortese COAUTHOR SENATE Laird COAUTHOR SENATE McNerney COAUTHOR SENATE Richardson COAUTHOR SENATE Stern COAUTHOR SENATE Wahab COAUTHOR ASSEMBLY Addis COAUTHOR ASSEMBLY Aguiar-Curry COAUTHOR ASSEMBLY Ahrens COAUTHOR ASSEMBLY Arambula COAUTHOR ASSEMBLY Ávila Farías COAUTHOR ASSEMBLY Bains COAUTHOR ASSEMBLY Bauer-Kahan COAUTHOR ASSEMBLY Bennett COAUTHOR ASSEMBLY Berman COAUTHOR ASSEMBLY Boerner COAUTHOR ASSEMBLY Bonta COAUTHOR ASSEMBLY Bryan COAUTHOR ASSEMBLY Calderon COAUTHOR ASSEMBLY Caloza COAUTHOR ASSEMBLY Carrillo COAUTHOR ASSEMBLY Connolly COAUTHOR ASSEMBLY Elhawary COAUTHOR ASSEMBLY Fong COAUTHOR ASSEMBLY Gabriel COAUTHOR ASSEMBLY Garcia COAUTHOR ASSEMBLY Gipson COAUTHOR ASSEMBLY Mark González COAUTHOR ASSEMBLY Haney COAUTHOR ASSEMBLY Harabedian COAUTHOR ASSEMBLY Hart COAUTHOR ASSEMBLY Irwin COAUTHOR ASSEMBLY Jackson COAUTHOR ASSEMBLY Kalra COAUTHOR ASSEMBLY Krell COAUTHOR ASSEMBLY Lee COAUTHOR ASSEMBLY Lowenthal COAUTHOR ASSEMBLY McKinnor COAUTHOR ASSEMBLY Muratsuchi COAUTHOR ASSEMBLY Nguyen COAUTHOR ASSEMBLY Ortega COAUTHOR ASSEMBLY Pacheco COAUTHOR ASSEMBLY Papan COAUTHOR ASSEMBLY Patel COAUTHOR ASSEMBLY Pellerin COAUTHOR ASSEMBLY Quirk-Silva COAUTHOR ASSEMBLY Ramos COAUTHOR ASSEMBLY Ransom COAUTHOR ASSEMBLY Rivas COAUTHOR ASSEMBLY Michelle Rodriguez COAUTHOR ASSEMBLY Rogers COAUTHOR ASSEMBLY Blanca Rubio COAUTHOR ASSEMBLY Schiavo COAUTHOR ASSEMBLY Schultz COAUTHOR ASSEMBLY Sharp-Collins COAUTHOR ASSEMBLY Solache COAUTHOR ASSEMBLY Soria COAUTHOR ASSEMBLY Stefani COAUTHOR ASSEMBLY Valencia COAUTHOR ASSEMBLY Wicks COAUTHOR ASSEMBLY Wilson COAUTHOR ASSEMBLY Zbur Relative to tariffs. tariffs Tariffs.

This measure would urge President Donald J. Trump to avoid raising the cost of living for American consumers by rescinding the tariffs that he has imposed since taking office in January and refunding the American people for the costs passed on to them by his tariffs. The measure would also urge the United States Congress to enact a joint resolution to rescind President Trump’s tariffs and to oppose all future unilateral and arbitrary tariff increases imposed by President Trump. NO

WHEREAS,

Article I of

Section of the United States Constitution vests in Congress the exclusive authority to “regulate Commerce with foreign Nations,” reflecting the founders’ intent to withhold from the executive branch the unilateral power to impose taxes and duties; and

WHEREAS, The constitutional power to tax and to regulate foreign commerce is among the most consequential powers of Congress because of its direct effect on prices, wages, investment, diplomacy, and our national economic stability; and

WHEREAS, Since the Allied victory in the Second World War, there has been a bipartisan consensus among both major American political parties supporting free trade; and

WHEREAS, In his State of the Union address, President Dwight D. Eisenhower declared that free trade was “[b]oth in our national interest, and in the interest of world peace”; and

WHEREAS, President Ronald Reagan said in a radio address that “one of the key factors behind our nation’s great prosperity is the open trade policy that allows the American people to freely exchange goods and services with free people around the world”; and

WHEREAS, In a keynote address to the Heritage Foundation, Donald J. Trump declared that Heritage would be building the agenda he would pursue should he be elected as President of the United States in 2024, saying Heritage would “lay the groundwork and detail plans for exactly what our movement will do”; and

WHEREAS, The Heritage Foundation produced the Presidential Transition Project, commonly known as Project 2025, calling it a “comprehensive policy guide [that] offers specific proposals for every major federal agency”; and

WHEREAS, A

section of Project 2025, authored by Peter Navarro, is entitled “The Case for Fair Trade,” which argues for the imposition of severe tariffs on foreign trade; and

WHEREAS, After the presidential election, President-elect Trump announced that he would appoint key authors and contributors from Project to positions in the federal government, including appointing Peter Navarro as Senior Counselor for Trade and Manufacturing; and

WHEREAS, On April 2, 2025, President Trump declared a national emergency pursuant to the International Emergency Economic Powers Act (IEEPA), which allowed him to impose a 10-percent base tariff on all foreign goods imported from foreign countries into the United States and imposed even higher tariffs on countries; and

WHEREAS, After the announcement of President Trump’s tariffs, stock markets around the world engaged in panic selling, which caused the largest decline in global stock markets since the onset of the COVID-19 pandemic; and

WHEREAS, In an April 30, 2025, letter to United States Treasury Secretary Scott Bessent, United States Chamber of Commerce President and CEO Suzanne Clark wrote that “many small businesses will suffer irreparable harm” due to the tariffs imposed by President Trump, and many small businesses are “seeing their ability to survive endangered by the recent increase in tariff rates”; and <caml:Content><xhtml:p>WHEREAS, There is a near consensus among economists that President Trump’s tariffs will increase the price of goods, and in a report published in May 2025, the nonpartisan Budget Lab at Yale University projects that the tariffs will decrease the average American household’s purchasing power by up to $2,800 per year; and</xhtml:p></caml:Content></caml:Whereas><caml:Whereas id="id_5BEDE529-2359-44D4-BCD9-7BDDE71500B1"><caml:Content><xhtml:p>WHEREAS, An analysis published in February by the Brookings Institution projects that President Trump’s tariffs imposed on imports from Canada and Mexico will increase the inflation rate by 1.3 percent, which would force the Federal Reserve System to maintain its current interest rates; and</xhtml:p></caml:Content></caml:Whereas>"?>

WHEREAS, Low-income and middle-class American households have been hit hardest by the price increases caused by President Trump’s tariffs, with the price of essential goods like bananas, coffee, and toilet paper rising; and

WHEREAS, While California faces an ongoing housing crisis, the increase in prices caused by President Trump’s tariffs will raise the price of building materials, which will in turn make the cost of a new home rise by about $9,200 according to the National Association of Home Builders based on data from March 2025; and

WHEREAS, California farmers exported more than $23 billion worth of food in 2022, with almonds topping the list, followed by dairy products, pistachios, and wine. According to a study by the University of California Giannini Foundation of Agricultural Economics, if the United States imposed a 10 percent tariff on all goods from all countries and those countries responded similarly, estimated annual export losses would be between $3.1 billion and $4.8 billion for California agribusiness; and

WHEREAS, Due to the imposition of tariffs, shipping volume in May at the Ports of Los Angeles and Long Beach fell by up to 40 percent, imperiling the supply chain of goods from Asia into the United States, a development which President Trump called “a good thing”; and

WHEREAS, American consumers paid more than $231 billion in tariff costs between February and January 2026, an average of approximately $1,751 per household nationwide, with California households projected to lose between $1,900 and $2,000 due to the disproportionate impact of tariffs on the state; and

WHEREAS, President Trump’s tariffs have caused global chaos and threaten the strength of the United States’ longstanding relationships with foreign nations and longtime American allies like the United Kingdom, the European Union, Japan, and the Republic of Korea; and

WHEREAS, On February 20, 2026, in a to decision written by Chief Justice John Roberts, the United States Supreme Court ruled that President Trump exceeded his constitutional authority by wrongfully claiming emergency powers from the IEEPA to impose sweeping tariffs on nearly every trading partner of the United States, and illegally imposing the largest tax increase on working families and small businesses in our lifetime; and

WHEREAS, Despite this rebuke by the Supreme Court, President Trump has invoked alternative statutory authority to continue imposing sweeping tariffs without congressional authorization, thereby prolonging the economic uncertainty plaguing the American and global economies, and further straining the limits of the separation of powers; and

WHEREAS, President Trump’s agenda to impose tariffs on imports will harm American working families by increasing the costs of everyday goods, increase inflation and derail the nation’s economic recovery from the recession caused by the COVID-19 pandemic, leave small businesses reeling from unpredictable periods of tariffs being imposed then paused without warning, and dangerously undermine the standing of the United States on the global stage;

now, therefore,

be it Resolved by the Senate and the Assembly of the State of California, jointly, That the Legislature urges President Donald J.

Trump to avoid raising the cost of living for American consumers by rescinding the tariffs that he has imposed since taking office in January 2025, and refunding the American people for the costs passed on to them by his tariffs; and be it further Resolved, That the Legislature urges the United States Congress to enact a joint resolution to rescind President Trump’s tariffs and to oppose all future unilateral and arbitrary tariff increases imposed by President Trump; and be it further Resolved, That the Secretary of the Senate transmit copies of this resolution to the President and the Vice President of the United States, to the Speaker of the House of Representatives, to the Minority Leader of the House of Representatives, to the Majority Leader of the United States Senate, to the Minority Leader of the United States Senate, to each Senator and Representative from California in the Congress of the United States, and to the author for appropriate distribution.

REVISIONS: Heading—Line 4.