Maria Cantwell urges U.S. to embrace ‘capitalism in the digital age’ amid Trump’s tariff threats

WASHINGTON – A day after the Trump administration struck last-minute deals with the governments of Mexico and Canada to delay and possibly avert a trade war, the Washington Democrat who leads her party on the Senate Commerce Committee took to the Senate floor on Tuesday to lay out a different vision for the U.S. economy.
Sen. Maria Cantwell, who chaired the influential panel until Democrats lost the Senate majority in the 2024 election, said the U.S. government should embrace the international connections that have made the country a global power. It was a sharp contrast with President Donald Trump’s repeated assertions that the United States is getting “ripped off” by close allies and trading partners like Canada, whose exports would become more expensive for American consumers if tariffs are imposed.
“I thought we were for capitalism,” Cantwell said. “Capitalism in the information age needs better rules so markets aren’t distorted, because markets need to be properly policed, and they aren’t right now. And I believe that the U.S. should aggressively define the rules in the information age.”
In a brief interview after delivering the speech, Cantwell said she “felt like it was really important to lay out that there’s another way” to look at the United States’ role in the global economy.
The remit of the Committee on Commerce, Science and Transportation – now chaired by Sen. Ted Cruz, R-Texas – includes the tech sector, and Cantwell was a leading architect of bipartisan legislation that Congress passed during the Biden administration to invest in science and technology.
The senator took particular issue with Trump’s threats against Canada, whose exports to the United States would face a 25% tariff with the exception of oil and gas, which would see an added 10% tax under the proposal that was delayed by 30 days after Canada’s government committed to launch border security initiatives that it had already announced.
“The premier of British Columbia said to me, ‘You’re forcing us to look at strategies to diversify away from the United States,’ ” Cantwell said. “Is that really where we want to be?”
The United States and Canada announced in July that they had reached an agreement in principle to update the Columbia River Treaty, a 60-year-old pact that governs how the two countries share the water in the basin, but Cantwell said that by antagonizing Canada with the tariff threat, the president may have set back those key negotiations.
“I think it’s safe to say we were inches away,” she said of the treaty negotiations. “And now I have no idea whether we’re going to be in a prolonged three-year or four-year hold, but this doesn’t help.”
Strengthening economic ties around the world, Cantwell said, can help other countries develop while improving Americans’ security. A lack of jobs, for instance, could drive people into extremist groups or push them to migrate.
“The impacts of the U.S. economy can’t be ignored, but to outcompete our adversaries, we need coalitions, not go-it-alone strategies,” she said.