President Trump has announced he's planning to pay Americans a dividend from all the income the U.S. government is making from the tariffs being charged to other countries.
"A dividend of at least $2000 a person (not including high income people!) will be paid to everyone," the president wrote on social media on Sunday.
Treasury Secretary Scott Bessent said he hadn't worked out the details with the president, but he offered some ideas on how the plan might play out.
Bessent said the money could be conveyed through tax savings in Trump's signature domestic spending measure. He told ABC News' "This Week" that the payout could come "in lots of forms."
"It could be just the tax decreases that we are seeing on the president's agenda," he said.
Trump's full statement on Truth Social indicated the tariffs have been profitable for the government, pointing to "Almost No Inflation, and A Record Stock Market Price. 401k's are Highest EVER," the President wrote. So he'd like to pass the tariff money along to U.S. taxpayers.
Matt Klucher with the Committee for a Responsible Federal Budget confirmed, “Current tariffs have raised about $100 billion so far, and will raise about $300 billion per year in the steady state.”
CRFB contends that Trump’s plan to provide most Americans $2,000 funded from tariffs would cost roughly $600 billion, so it could take two years of tariffs to pay for a single year of payouts.
But a CNN report says the U.S. has already collected $220 billion through tariffs, and it estimates the tariff stimulus payments to Americans could cost around $326 billion.
On Monday, Trump followed up, saying he thinks there will be money left over after the tariff dividends to start addressing the national debt, which is careening closer to $40 trillion every day.
"All money left over from the $2000 payments made to low and middle income USA Citizens…will be used to SUBSTANTIALLY PAY DOWN NATIONAL DEBT," he wrote in another post.
While "high-income people" would be excluded from the plan, it's unclear who exactly would qualify for the money and who would be omitted. But during the Pandemic, stimulus payouts were sent to American taxpayers making less than $75,000 individually, or $150,000 as a couple.
Meanwhile, the future of the tariffs is also in question as the Supreme Court seems to be doubting whether President Trump has the authority to implement certain tariffs using emergency powers, like he has been doing.
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