Multiple Senate Republicans said on Thursday that they’re hopeful the Trump administration will move to drop its 17% tariff on imports from Israel, which was announced on Wednesday alongside sweeping global tariffs, with some expressing confusion and consternation about the announcement.

The duty — higher than the 10% baseline minimum tariff the administration applied to some countries — came even though Israel had earlier in the week dropped all tariffs on U.S. goods in an attempt to avoid facing the new penalties. The administration had previously indicated that the U.S. would not impose tariffs on countries that did not charge tariffs on U.S. goods.

Information released by the White House indicates that the tariffs are based on the U.S. trade deficit with various trading partners, rather than the import duties that they levy on U.S. goods. Based on those calculations, the White House claimed that Israel levies 33% tariffs on the U.S., “including currency manipulation and trade barriers.”

The Trump administration has sent mixed messages on whether it’s open to negotiations or seeking specific concessions from countries to remove the tariffs.

“I was surprised to go through the list and to see UAE is 10%, Saudi Arabia is 10%, Egypt is 10%, Turkey is 10%, Lebanon is 10%, Israel is 17[%],” Sen. James Lankford (R-OK) told Jewish Insider. “So yes, I was surprised by that, and I would hope that Israel and [the U.S. trade representative] and others can get a chance to be able to talk and be able to find out why their rate is different than Lebanon or Turkey or Saudi Arabia or UAE.”

Sen. John Kennedy (R-LA) said that “a lot’s going on right now” and that he expects that over the next few months there will be “an enormous amount of negotiation and readjustment.”

“I believe personally that if a country like Israel says, ‘We’re not going to put any tariffs on your goods,’ we shouldn’t put on any tariffs on theirs,” Kennedy continued. “I’ve been begging Canada to do that — let’s just go to zero tariffs. And I think eventually you’ll see that tariff removed in Israel.”

Sen. Ted Cruz (R-TX) said he is “not a fan of tariffs” and suggested the consequences of such a move were unknown at this time. 

“If the result of this announcement is that our trading partners reduce the tariffs on U.S. goods and services, and we in turn reduce our own tariffs, that would be a good outcome,”  Cruz said. “If, on the other hand, the result is everybody else jacks up their tariffs, and we keep high tariffs in place, that would be a bad outcome. Tariffs are a tax on American consumers, and I am not a fan of raising taxes on American consumers.”

Sen. Thom Tillis (R-NC) predicted that the Trump administration would face pushback over the Israel tariffs specifically. “I’m not surprised that they did it in every trading jurisdiction, but I think that will be one of the pushbacks that we’ll see in the coming days,” he told JI.

Sen. Mike Rounds (R-SD) said that the tariffs on Israel would “make more sense [if] maybe the paperwork” from Israel to eliminate its tariffs “hasn’t caught up with the promise yet. At least I’m hoping that might be the case.”

Sen. Rick Scott (R-FL) said he’d have to look further into the situation, adding that he’d met with Trump before the announcement and the president had again said that if other countries reduced their tariffs on the United States, then the U.S. would do the same.

But Sen. Markwayne Mullin (R-OK) argued that the tariffs on Israel might be based on factors beyond Israel’s own tariff policies.

“It’s not just the tariffs. What you’ve got to be looking at is also what’s going on with the access we had in the market too,” Mullin said, offering as an example Japan’s placing of restrictions on sales of U.S. vehicles inside Japan even though it does not charge a tariff to import them.

“It’s not just tariffs, it’s the equal ability to have access to markets,” Mullin continued. “Just because they went to 0% tariffs and duties doesn’t mean we still have full access to markets and that’s what we’re wanting.”

Pro-Israel Democrats, meanwhile, are savaging the tariffs as an unreasonable and unjustified affront to Israel which will hurt both countries.

“These tariffs are the biggest self-inflicted wound for the United States in decades, and the harm done to our allies like Israel is exceeded only by the tragic, self-inflicted wound on our consumers, our manufacturers, our service providers,” Sen. Richard Blumenthal (D-CT) said. “There’s no logic to what has been done to Israel, especially for a president who professes to be a strong supporter. It’s going to boomerang, and deeply harm our country as well as Israel and other allies.”

Rep. Jerry Nadler (D-NY) highlighted that Israel is being tariffed at a higher level than some of its autocratic neighbors, arguing that the “tariffs endanger not only Israel’s economic prosperity, but its security and stability as well.”

Democratic Majority for Israel President Mark Mellman in a statement claimed that the tariffs effectively played into the Boycott, Divestment and Sanctions movement’s efforts to damage the U.S.-Israel economic relationship. Mellman said that they could also damage industries relying on bilateral trade.

The Jewish Democratic Council of America CEO Halie Soifer called the tariffs “a ‘matzah mark-up’ just in time for Passover.”