U.S. Trade Representative Jamieson Greer declared Sunday that Republican lawmakers who once balked at tariffs have largely rallied behind the administration's trade agenda, dismissing the handful of GOP dissenters as irrelevant to the party's direction.

Appearing on CBS's "Face the Nation," Greer painted a picture of a party that has moved decisively toward the president's position on trade, not because of arm-twisting, but because the numbers started talking.

"I've heard from a lot of Republicans over the past year, ones who traditionally, you know, weren't always in favor of tariffs, they've now come around. And they said, one, we've seen this as effective to negotiate deals."

Greer didn't stop there. He laid out a three-part case that converts are citing: tariffs work as leverage in negotiations, they drive reshoring of American industry, and they generate real revenue, The Hill reported. He also noted that the administration pulled at least one Democrat into the fold on a recent vote.

The dissenters and what they signal

Earlier this month, six Republicans voted to repeal tariffs on Canada. In a caucus that spans hundreds of members, six is a rounding error. Greer treated it as exactly that.

"The Republicans who voted against the president, they vote against him on everything. These are people who are either in the doghouse or on the way out. So, it's not, it's not really representative of where the party is."

That's a sharp characterization, and it tells you something about where the internal power dynamics stand. The old Republican free-trade consensus, the one that treated any tariff as economic heresy, has been shrinking for years. What remains of it now fits comfortably in a conference room. The broader party has absorbed the lesson that "free trade" was often a euphemism for arrangements that benefited multinational corporations while hollowing out American manufacturing towns.

The fact that only six Republicans broke ranks, while a Democrat crossed the aisle in the other direction, suggests the political gravity on trade has shifted more than Washington's legacy institutions want to admit.

After the Supreme Court ruling

The Supreme Court ruled that President Trump did not have the authority to impose tariffs under the International Emergency Economic Powers Act. The administration adapted without missing a beat. The president implemented a 15 percent global tariff and is now working to approve current trade rates under laws outside of IEEPA.

This is the part that matters most for the road ahead. Greer made clear that the administration views existing congressional statutes as more than sufficient to sustain the trade program. When pressed on whether Congress needed to act, he framed it as an open door, not a necessity.

"Congress has already put out statutes allowing the president to impose tariffs. And tariffs have been in place under those types of statutes for, for many years at this point. So, in some ways, Congress has already preapproved these types of authorities."

He added that he's "happy to have conversations with Congress" about legislating the president's trade program and that some lawmakers have shown interest. But the core message was unmistakable: the program continues regardless.

"We're not going to stop our program. We'll just use the congressional authorities they've extended already for now."

The realignment is real

For decades, the Republican Party's economic establishment preached a catechism of unilateral free trade. Lower every barrier. Trust the market. If a factory closes in Ohio, the displaced workers can retrain for the knowledge economy. It was elegant in theory. In practice, it exported prosperity and imported dependency.

What Greer described Sunday is the other side of that correction. Republican lawmakers aren't just tolerating tariffs as a presidential prerogative. They're citing specific outcomes: leverage gained, factories reconsidered, revenue collected. That shift from grudging acceptance to active endorsement represents something more durable than a single administration's policy preference. It reflects a party that finally internalized what its own voters were screaming at it for a decade.

The old guard will continue to file dissents. Editorial boards will continue to invoke Smoot-Hawley as though it were a magic spell. But the vote count tells the real story. When the moment came to repeal tariffs on Canada, the overwhelming majority of Republicans stood with the president. One Democrat joined them.

The consensus didn't crack. It shifted.