President Trump announced on Thursday that he is still weighing a plan to send every American a $2,000 check, funded by the surge in government revenue from his sweeping “Liberation Day” tariffs.
“They’re just starting to kick in,” Trump said about the tariffs in an interview with One America News Network, “but ultimately, your tariffs are going to be over a trillion dollars a year.”
This year, the federal government has collected around $214.9 billion in tariff revenue, according to data from the Treasury Department. In September alone, the United States took in approximately $31.3 billion, which was about $75 million lower than the revenue from August.
“Number one, we’re paying down debt,” Trump continued, “because people have allowed the debt to go crazy.”
President Trump argued that the $37 trillion in national debt is actually “very little, relatively speaking” because he believes the tariff revenue alone will be enough to begin paying it down.
“With that being said, we’ll pay back debt, but we also might make a distribution to the people,” Trump said, describing his plan as “a dividend to the people of America.”
“We’re thinking maybe $1,000 to $2,000 — it would be great.”
Any rebate to the American people taken out of the tariff revenu would require Congressional approval.
Treasury Secretary Scott Bessent has said he expects the U.S. to collect around $300 billion in tariff revenue by the end of the year.
This comes as the Supreme Court is expected to hear oral arguments on the constitutionality of the tariffs in the first week of November. In August, the US Court of Appeals for the Federal Circuit ruled the President's unilateral implementation of tariffs on countries around the world unconstitutional, as the power over trade is allotted to Congress in Article I of the United States Constitution.