The House of Representatives -- against the wishes of the Republican speaker -- seems poised to vote today on a direct rebuke to Donald Trump's willy-nilly tariff regime. This is interesting news at the start of a midterm election year, but it probably won't actually serve to rein in Trump. Even so, it would be only the second time the Republican Congress expressly pushed back on Trump for any reason at all, so it is at least noteworthy.

The first time Congress did so, Trump decided at the last minute to switch sides and support a bill that forced him to order the release of the Epstein files. This made no sense whatsoever, since Trump didn't need Congress to act in order to achieve this -- he could have just called up the Department of Justice and told them to do so. Because Trump refused to do so, Congress finally forced him to. And when Trump realized he was about to lose the vote (in an overwhelming rout), he decided to jump on board the bandwagon (even though doing so made no sense whatsoever, as mentioned). The result was an almost near-unanimous vote in both chambers of Congress (only one Republican voted against the effort).

This time around, Trump is fighting back -- even though he knows he is likely to lose, at least at first. But as long as he can keep the margin below the two-thirds necessary for a veto override, he will eventually win the legislative battle.

The issue under consideration is the 25 percent tariff Trump slapped on Canada. The new tariff is deeply unpopular with farmers -- a big Trump constituency -- and House members from rural districts may decide to boost their chances of re-election by voting against the tariff (which is what their constituents want).

Up until this point, House Speaker Mike Johnson has completely blocked any votes on any of Trump's tariffs in his chamber. He did so pre-emptively, by passing a prohibition against even bringing such bills to the floor for a vote. This worked during all of last year, but his prohibition ran out at the end of January. So he tried to pass another one to extend it, but three Republicans voted with all the Democrats and it failed. Representative Don Bacon, one of the three (with Thomas Massie and Kevin Kiley), posted his reasoning on social media:

Congress needs to be able to debate on tariffs. Tariffs have been a "net negative" for the economy and are a significant tax that American consumers, manufacturers, and farmers are paying. Article I of the Constitution places authority over taxes and tariffs with Congress for a reason, but for too long, we have handed that authority to the executive branch. It's time for Congress to reclaim that responsibility.

A Democratic representative, Gregory Meeks, is now set to force a vote today that would end the "national emergency" that Trump announced to justify his tariffs on Canada. Tariffs are not popular with the public (one recent poll had 60 percent disapproving of them to only 37 approval) and they are hurting specific industries beyond just farm country. As Meeks put it: "President Trump brags about the money generated from tariffs, but it is money ripped right out of the wallets of working families." Now that the prohibition against such votes has been lifted, other such votes are also being teed up by Democrats, on Mexico and China and Brazil.

The Senate has already passed resolutions to end tariffs last October (on Canada, on Brazil, and one generic one covering the "reciprocal" tariffs Trump imposed on the entire rest of the world), with three Republicans crossing the aisle and voting with the Democrats to rebuke the president. And the closer we get to the midterm elections, more and more Republicans might be tempted to vote against the tariffs that are hurting their own constituents.

Even before the vote is held, the White House is reportedly already preparing for defeat. Here is how they seem to be viewing their chances:

The White House is anticipating "substantial" Republican defections when the House votes Wednesday on a resolution overturning President Donald Trump's Canadian tariffs, a White House official, granted anonymity to discuss the administration's thinking, told Politico.

The official said that while the White House is talking to House offices Wednesday in an effort to defeat the measure, "our expectation is that the effort will not be successful."

Rather than scrambling to head off any GOP breakaways, the administration is focused on ensuring it maintains enough support to prevent a veto override -- a striking posture for a president that has long treated party loyalty as nonnegotiable.

"The new number is two-thirds, and not whether or not you get a majority," the official said, acknowledging that the "baseline House Republican position" is tariff skepticism.

That's rather astonishing, especially from a president who keeps such a tight rein on his fellow Republicans. But it also reflects the almost-impossible nature of defeating such a vote, when three Republicans have already voted with the Democrats. Johnson can only afford to lose one GOP vote right now in order to muster a partisan majority on any vote. But with such an apparent green light from the White House, it will be interesting to see how many Republicans decide to defect on the vote. Since Trump already knows he's going to lose, it frees them up to vote to please their constituents, not him.

However, nobody should get their hopes up too far, because the White House strategist is probably right. Any such measure that passed the House would have to pass the Senate. And then it would go to Trump's desk, where he would veto it. So far, the number of Republicans willing to vote against tariffs is nowhere near what it would take to override that veto. In the Senate, it would take 20 GOP defections. In the House, it would require over 75 Republicans to cross the aisle.

So today's vote will certainly be a very rare rebuke of Donald Trump by the Republican House, but it likely won't change anything in the end. Even so, it will be interesting to see how many aisle-crossers there are. The veto-proof "magic number" in the House is 290 votes, but it is not likely that the actual vote will be anywhere near that hurdle. It will also be interesting to see what the Senate Republicans will do, although once again it is highly doubtful the vote there will even approach the 67 votes that would be necessary to overturn a Trump veto.

Of course, this won't be the last word on the subject. Democrats are likely to tee up plenty of other chances to put Republicans on the record defending Trump's tariffs, for starters. But the real best chance of wresting the power to slap tariffs on other countries away from Trump is likely going to come when the Supreme Court issues its ruling on the constitutionality of Trump's actions. This ruling is actually long overdue, and Trump is rightfully frightened that they're going to rule against him. When the case was heard, even the conservatives on the court were highly skeptical of the administration's reasoning, but then again the long delay in the ruling might signal that the court is searching for some way to avoid ruling against Trump (which has certainly happened before).

For now, though, it seems that Trump is going to have to face pushback from within his own party on one of his signature issues in his second term. House Republicans -- a few of them, at any rate -- seem poised to serve up a big rebuke of Trump on his use of tariffs. After all, fealty towards Trump only goes so far in an election year.

-- Chris Weigant

Follow Chris on Twitter: @ChrisWeigant