Donald Trump barely repelled a challenge to his global tariff offensive in the Republican-controlled US Senate as the president’s trade policy stokes public fears of inflation and recession.The Senate tied 49-49 in a Wednesday vote on a resolution to end the barrage of import taxes the president announced earlier this month on China and most other US trading partners.

President Donald Trump narrowly avoided a rebuke from the U.S. Senate on his tariffs due to one Democratic senator's absence. The resolution, defeated with a 49-49 tie on April 30, reflects discontent with Trump's 10% across-the-board tariffs and now-paused "retaliatory" tariffs that rattled Wall Street and contributed to a shrinking GDP as four Republicans joined with all present Democrats in supporting it.

An evenly split U.S. Senate rejected the latest bid to overturn a slew of President Donald Trump's tariffs on Wednesday, hours after the federal government said the economy contracted for the first time in three years amid the chaos of the tariff regime.