At an event Monday with U.S. Secretary of Transportation Sean Duffy, Sen. John Curtis said he was “very sympathetic” to small businesses affected by recent wide-ranging tariffs imposed by the Trump administration.
“Listen, we’ve all seen this before,” Curtis told reporters at a brief news conference Monday. It was unclear what specifically Curtis was referring to, though previous mass tariffs have caused significant economic turmoil.
The new tariffs announced by President Donald Trump last week include a baseline 10% tax on all imports, with additional higher rates on imports from some countries.
“I’m very, very sympathetic, particularly to small businesses that are dealing with tariffs,” Curtis said. “We’ll see where this goes. But we’re clearly on this path that we’re committed to.”
(Rick Egan | The Salt Lake Tribune) Transportation Secretary Sean Duffy visits with U.S. Rep. Celeste Maloy after riding the FrontRunner train on Monday, April 7, 2025.
Curtis added, “I think we in the Senate need to do all we can to get a good runway for our small businesses and bring predictability into this as well.”
According to an Axios report Monday, Trump said he would veto a bill that would give Congress the ability to end tariffs and the right to approve new import taxes. Though the bill has some bipartisan support, Republican leadership has refused to sign on or even commit to bringing the legislation to the floor for a vote.
Curtis’s comments came after he, Rep. Celeste Maloy, and Duffy took a short trip on the FrontRunner, Utah’s commuter rail that runs between Ogden and Provo. There, Carlton Christensen, chair of the board of trustees of the Utah Transit Authority, told reporters that UTA has plans to expand with additional light rail and that they are “looking at a system from South Davis County into the University of Utah.”
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Duffy praised Utah’s investments in transportation and said he thinks Republicans are interested in those projects. “Oftentimes, transit is seen as a Democrat issue and not a Republican issue, and I would 100% disagree with that,” he said. “It’s an issue that the Congress says we should invest in. Communities actually want us to invest in.”
“I look at what you guys have done here in Utah, and it appears you are doing it the right way, doing it well,” he added.
(Rick Egan | The Salt Lake Tribune) Transportation Secretary Sean Duffy talks to Sen. John Curtis as they ride the FrontRunner train on Monday, April 7, 2025.
Asked how the recent tariffs would affect that ability to expand and invest in transportation projects, Duffy defended Trump’s decision and called the taxes a “massive revenue driver.”
“For some who say that the prices are going to go up, I would tell you that the American worker, when unleashed, can produce products more cost effectively, because we are more efficient and harder working,” he said. “More revenue from the federal coffers means more money that’s going to come from the Congress to make sure we can make important investments throughout the country, whether it’s transit or roads or bridges.”
Other members of Utah’s congressional delegation have expressed similar consternation about the president’s announcement last week.
“I’ve always been supportive of targeted approaches toward strategic industries,” Republican Rep. Blake Moore of Utah’s first congressional district told The Deseret News last week. “Enacting a new tariff regime has been a major focus of President Trump’s second administration these last few months, and while I’m concerned, I’m not surprised by the market and public’s reactions to yesterday’s announcement.”
Sen. Mike Lee, meanwhile, a longtime supporter of free trade agreements, said on the social media platform X Monday that he hopes Trump will leverage the tariffs to negotiate better agreements with foreign trade partners.
“Trump could go down as the most pro-trade, pro-growth president in modern U.S. history if he uses this moment as an opportunity to reduce trade barriers,” he wrote Monday. “It would help ease inflation while promoting demand for U.S. products abroad. That would be good for Americans.”
Correction, 8:30 a.m. • This story has been updated to correct the spelling of Sean Duffy’s last name in one instance.
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