President Donald Trump Sunday again promised tariff dividend to Americans which will possibly be a payout to every American straight from the money America will be raising from its tariffs. This is not the first time that Trump floated the idea but this time he specified the amount and also spelt out the condition that high-income people will not get it. “A dividend of at $2000 a person (not including high income people!) will be paid to everyone,” the president said on his Truth Social platform. He added that those against the tariffs are “FOOLS!”Such a proposal would likely need to be passed by Congress. This summer, Republican Sen. Josh Hawley (Mo.) introduced legislation to give $600 tariff rebates to nearly all Americans and their dependent children.“We are taking in Trillions of Dollars and will soon begin paying down our ENORMOUS DEBT, $37 Trillion. Record Investment in the USA, plants and factories going up all over the place,” Trump posted. The doubling down on tariffs from the President came as the Supreme Court, earlier this week, heard arguments on tariffs, whether they were legally imposed. Judges were concerned that tariffs acted as a revenue-raising tax as opposed to a mechanism to solve any emergency caused by a trade imbalance. The Supreme Court has not ruled on the tariff case. Treasury secretary Scott Bessent, in an interview with ABC’s “This Week” on Sunday, said the tariffs were not about “taking in the revenue,” but rather were intended to re-balance trade.
How to get the tariff dividend? Who will get it?
This is the first time that Trump specified the amount of $2000 as a tariff dividend. Earlier, he suggested that Americans may get an amount between $1000 and $2000 as the dividend. It is not yet clear how the administration will give it. The proposal sounds like stimulus checks, which are direct payments from the government to taxpayers during an economic slowdown to encourage taxpayers to spend money.Though most of the details are unclear, one clarity that Trump’s Truth Social post offered was that high-income people would not receive it.
