Tariffs have been the centerpiece of President Trump’s economic agenda, and he has turned to them as not only a revenue raiser but also a slush fund to pay for a raft of policy promises.
Now that the Supreme Court has ruled that he exceeded his authority under the law he tried to use to impose more than $100 billion of his tariffs, many of those promises are even less likely to be fulfilled. It was never clear if Mr. Trump could use tariff revenue to fund his ideas without Congress’s approval, but he regularly gave himself wide latitude to do so.
Tariff revenue was always unlikely to be sufficient to cover Mr. Trump’s spending dreams, but the president still seemed to describe the revenue tariffs would generate as essentially limitless.
Economists estimate that the Trump administration will have to refund around $120 billion to American importers. Mr. Trump will most likely try to impose levies under different tariff authorities, which could allow him to pay for some of his proposals.
A Cato Institute tracker of Mr. Trump’s tariff policies found that the president claimed over 15 months that he could use that money to pay for 11 federal government policies or programs.
The promises have included $500 billion for a “dream military,” $2.6 billion for “warrior dividends” for military service members and the $12 billion bailout that the White House provided to American farmers who faced retaliation from Mr. Trump’s trade war. The farm aid money, which was paid, did not technically come from tariff money even though Mr. Trump suggested that those funds offset the cost.
He also promised $2,000 rebate checks for low- and middle-income Americans and suggested that tariff revenue could be used to reduce or eliminate the federal income tax.
“If we learned (or confirmed) something in 2025, it’s that the president and his cabinet believe in U.S. tariff policy as the solution to every conceivable problem,” Scott Lincicome and Alfredo Carrillo Obregon wrote in their Cato Institute tracker.
Alan Rappeport is an economic policy reporter for The Times, based in Washington. He covers the Treasury Department and writes about taxes, trade and fiscal matters.
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