Revenue from President Trump’s tariffs fell in November, but the president’s repeated promises about what to do with the money continue apace.
By Yahoo Finance’s count, the president has floated at least nine different ideas for how to use the tariff money heading back into the 2024 campaign.
It’s a list of promises that range from sending Americans a $2,000 tariff dividend check to paying for the tax cuts Republicans instituted this summer.
Trump reminded a crowd at a rally in Pennsylvania this week how he feels about tariffs, saying of the word, “I like it more than any other word in the dictionary.” He only dropped it after other words like religion and family, he said, at the behest of “fake news”.
President Donald Trump arrives to comment on the economy at the Mount Airy Casino Resort in Mount Pocono, Pennsylvania on December 9. (Andrew Caballero-Reynolds/AFP via Getty Images) ·Andrew Caballero-Reynolds via Getty Images
However, the tariff revenue picture has become more cloudy in recent weeks after the president bowed to Americans’ affordability concerns and eliminated some tariffs that have seen prices rise on commodities such as coffee, oranges and cocoa.
Monthly tariff revenue it received fell from $31.35 billion in October to $30.76 billion last month, the first decrease since Trump began implementing his historic second-term duties.
And Trump’s promises, of course, come with a Supreme Court ruling that could not only invalidate the lion’s share of the new tariffs, but potentially force him to pay back up to $100 billion.
This past week, the administration announced a $12 billion bailout fund for farmers. That money “wouldn’t be possible without fees,” the president said.
Scott Lincicome, an economist at the Cato Institute, was quick to point out four additional things Trump has promised to do with his tariffs.
In addition to farm bailouts, dividend checks, and tax cuts, Lincicome noted Trump’s promise to pay down the national debt with tariffs and his occasional suggestion that tariffs could lead to the elimination of the income tax.
One respondent quickly pointed to a sixth example: the Trump campaign’s promise to pay for more child care with tariffs.
At an event at the Economic Club of New York last September, he was asked about his ideas for making child care more affordable.
“I’m talking about taxing foreign nations at levels they’re not used to,” he replied, adding that “any of the numbers we’re talking about, including child care, are much larger.”
Donald Trump speaks at a campaign event at the Economic Club of New York on Sept. 5, 2024, in New York. (AP Photo/Pamela Smith) ·Associated Press
A review of Trump’s campaign promises and other proposals since taking office finds even more examples, including at the same Economic Club event in New York.
“Through all this money that’s taken in through tariffs and other intellectual things … we’ll have the biggest sovereign wealth fund of them all,” he suggested another use of the money.
More recently, Trump reportedly floated the idea of a “victory fund” for Ukraine, financed by new tariffs on China on its purchases of Russian oil.
His administration also used tariff money to keep the Special Supplemental Nutrition Program for Women, Infants and Children (WIC) running with a $300 million infusion during the government shutdown.
The November receipts bring the total tariff revenue accumulated this calendar year to about $236.16 billion with a month to go.
But almost all of Trump’s ideas have an even bigger price tag, meaning it’s unlikely he’ll pay for almost any of them with tariff revenue.
As one example, the Committee for a Responsible Federal Budget recently estimated that one round of tariff dividend checks could cost up to $600 billion and take about two years to pay off using only tariff revenues.
Activists pose outside the Supreme Court in November as the high court hears arguments on the legality of the Trump administration’s tariffs. (Andrew Hornick/Getty Images) ·Andrew Hornick via Getty Images
“Under almost any design option, sending a $2,000 payment to Americans would increase, not decrease, the federal budget deficit,” the Tax Foundation added in its own analysis. “The best way to provide relief from the burden of tariffs is to remove customs duties.”
Earlier this year, the president also suggested that tariffs meant he could now balance the budget.
But that seems unlikely, and personal income taxes aren’t going anywhere anytime soon either.
So far this calendar year the number of those taxes — compared to the $236 billion tariff hole — is more than 10 times higher, to more than $2.5 trillion, according to the Treasury Department.
Ben Verskull is the Washington correspondent for Yahoo Finance.
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