Last weekend, President Donald Trump promised to give Americans $2,000 per person from the “trillions” of tariff revenue his administration had collected.
During his second term, President Trump has imposed widespread tariffs on certain goods, including countries and drugs, steel and automobiles.
“Those who oppose tariffs are idiots!” President Trump said in a Nov. 9 Truth social post. “We have accepted trillions of dollars and will soon begin paying down our massive $37 trillion debt. Investment in the United States is at record levels, factories and factories are being built everywhere. Dividends of at least $2,000 per person will be paid to everyone (not including high-income earners!).”
How seriously should people take his oath? Experts urged caution.
Tariffs are projected to be well below “trillion” per year, making it difficult to pay $2,000 per person. And the administration has already said it will use the tariff revenue to pay for existing tax cuts or reduce the federal debt.
Trump’s post came days after the U.S. Supreme Court heard arguments about the legality of Trump’s tariff policies. The justices are considering whether President Trump has the authority to unilaterally impose tariffs under the International Emergency Economic Powers Act. If the judge rules against Mr. Trump, much of the expected future tariff revenue will never materialize.
What Trump has proposed and who qualifies for it?
The administration has not released any plans for tariff dividends, and Treasury Secretary Scott Bessent said in an interview with ABC News on Nov. 9 that he has not talked to President Trump about giving dividends to Americans.
Details regarding potential payments are limited to postings on Truth Social.
President Trump said “everyone” except “high-income earners” would receive benefits, but he did not explain the criteria for high-income earners. Nor did it say whether the children would receive benefits.
In a Nov. 10 post on Truth Social, President Trump said his administration would first pay $2,000 to “low- and moderate-income Americans” and then use the remaining tariff proceeds to “significantly repay the national debt.”
President Trump did not say what form the payments would take. Bessent said the dividends “could be done in a variety of different ways. You know, it could just be a tax cut that we’re looking at as part of the president’s agenda. You know, no tax on tips, no tax on overtime, no tax on Social Security, car loan deductions, etc. So those are real deductions.”
Analysts say it would be a step too far to rebrand already promised tax cuts as new dividends.
President Trump has previously discussed paying Americans with tariff revenue.
“We’ve got so much money coming in that we’re looking at a little bit of a rebate, but what we want to do is pay down the debt,” he told reporters on July 25.
A few days later, Sen. Josh Hawley introduced a bill that would give each American adult and child a $600 tariff refund check. Hawley’s bill has not yet moved forward.
Collected customs revenue and “dividend” payment costs
President Trump has made tariffs one of the key promises of his 2024 presidential campaign. Since taking office in January, he has enacted the largest tariffs the United States has seen in nearly a century. The current average overall tariff rate is 18%, the highest since 1934, according to the Yale Budget Institute.
By the end of October, the federal government collected $309.2 billion in customs revenue, and by the same point in 2024, customs revenue was $165.4 billion, an increase of $143.8 billion.
The center-right Tax Foundation predicts that if tariffs continue, tariff revenues will continue to rise to more than $200 billion a year.
Erika York, vice president of federal tax policy at the Tax Foundation, estimated in a Nov. 9 X post that a $2,000 tariff dividend for each person earning less than $100,000 would equate to 150 million adult recipients. York estimates it would cost nearly $300 billion, or more if children qualify. This is said to be more than the tariffs raised to date.
The Committee for a Responsible Federal Budget estimated that President Trump’s proposal could cost $600 billion, depending on its composition.
The administration previously detailed other uses for toll revenue.
The Trump administration has already promised to use the tariff revenue for other purposes, including reducing the budget deficit and offsetting the cost of the Republican tax and spending bill that Trump signed in July.
President Trump announced the new tariffs on April 2, saying he would “spend trillions of dollars to cut taxes and pay down the national debt.”
Mr. Bessent made similar promises, falsely saying in July that tariffs would “cover the deficit.”
The Treasury secretary said in August that he and President Trump are “committed to paying off the debt.”
“I think we can lower the budget deficit as a percentage of GDP,” Bessent said in an Aug. 19 CNBC interview. “We’ll start paying down the debt and at some point we’ll be able to use that as compensation to the American people.”
Current cost of tariffs to American citizens
Analysts say the tariffs are already hurting Americans. Independent estimates range from approximately $1,600 to $2,600 per year per household. Given that these amounts are similar to President Trump’s dividend proposal, York said it would be more efficient to eliminate the tariffs.
Joseph Rosenberg, a senior fellow at the Urban Institute’s Brookings Institution Tax Policy Center, said distributing the $2,000 in checks would require approval from Congress, but lawmakers have already refused to act on the idea once.
Rosenberg said that when lawmakers approved the One Big Beautiful Bill Act, they “could have included a tariff dividend, but they didn’t.”
