Cash from Customs: Trump Pledges Tariff-Funded Checks by Next Year
President Donald Trump announced Monday that Americans could receive direct dividend payments, funded by tariff revenues, as early as mid-2026. In a statement from the Oval Office, Trump revealed that “hundreds of millions of dollars in tariff money” would be distributed to the public, reiterating a recent pledge to send $2,000 checks to low- and middle-income Americans. He stated that any remaining funds from the tariff windfall would then be directed toward paying down the nation’s staggering $38 trillion debt.
This ambitious proposal emerges as tariff revenues have climbed sharply, reaching $215.2 billion in the last fiscal year. However, the plan faces significant hurdles; the collected duties amount to a mere fraction of the national debt and are dwarfed by other federal income sources like individual taxes. Furthermore, the entire initiative hinges on a pending Supreme Court review that will decide the ultimate legality of the Trump administration’s trade policies and the tariffs funding them.
