Trump's Tariffs Don't Come Close to Funding Everything He's Proposed

President Donald Trump has said over the last year that money brought in from his increased tariffs would pay for at least half a dozen initiatives — from reducing the national debt to providing dividend checks to "moderate income patriots" — but the revenue raised so far can't deliver all of them.

In fact, that revenue would be able to cover only a fraction of what the president has proposed. Trump recently highlighted three initiatives that he claimed would be "easily" paid for because of the tariff revenue: an increase in the defense budget, dividend checks for Americans and paying down the debt. It would take several years for the estimated revenue from Trump's tariffs to cover the cost of those first two proposals, if the tariff rates remain in effect.

"Tariffs fall very short of funding all the priorities the President has suggested they can pay for," Erica York, vice president of federal tax policy at the Tax Foundation, told us.