![\"1MUST](\"https:\/\/news2.watchtowatch.top\/wp-content\/uploads\/2025\/11\/mceclip0-1763537505-q80-3.webp\")
<\/p>\n<\/p>\n
nother day, another Donald Trump happening that\u2019s sparked debate.<\/strong><\/p>\n The president has made all manner of lofty promises over the past year, both prior to and since his victory in the presidential election. We\u2019re\u00a0still\u00a0<\/em>waiting on the release of the Epstein files, for example, while the Russia-Ukraine war continues to rage despite Trump\u2019s assertion that he would end it before he even arrived at the Oval Office to begin his second term.<\/p>\n To put it mildly, one should perhaps not believe\u00a0everything\u00a0<\/em>that Trump pledges to make true. Which is why a moment\u2019s pause is needed before US citizens get excited about receiving a $2,000 dividend to be distributed from what Trump claimed was tariff revenue.<\/p>\n Naturally, that\u2019s easier said than done. Who doesn\u2019t want to get $2,000 in their bank account for doing nothing? Particularly when they\u2019ve been promised it by the country\u2019s leader.<\/p>\n \u201cA dividend of at least $2000 a person (not including high income people!) will be paid to everyone,\u201d\u00a0Trump\u00a0wrote on Truth Social on Sunday.<\/p>\n In the post in question, he neglected to elaborate on a potential timeline, exactly who would be eligible for the dividend, and who wouldn\u2019t be eligible.<\/p>\n In typically bombastic fashion, Trump painted a hyperbolic picture of his tariff program, declaring it an astonishing success.<\/p>\n \u201cPeople that are against Tariffs are FOOLS! We are now the Richest, Most Respected Country In the World, With Almost No Inflation, and A Record Stock Market Price. 401k\u2019s are Highest EVER,\u201d Trump wrote.<\/p>\n \u201cWe 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.\u201d<\/p>\n Perhaps predictably, doubts were cast on Trump\u2019s plan to hand out $2000 to everyone.\u00a0The Guardian\u00a0delved a little deeper into the potential problems with such a huge undertaking on the government\u2019s part, with analysts pointing out that there are two major hurdles.<\/p>\n The first is cost. Such a payment could cost between $300 billion and $513 billion, depending on whether children count and which adults are eligible.<\/p>\n Economist Erica York wrote: \u201cIf the cutoff is $100,000, 150M adults would qualify, for a cost near $300 billion. \u2026 Adjusting for that, tariffs have raised $90 billion of net revenues compared to Trump\u2019s proposed $300 billion rebate.\u201d<\/p>\n The second issue is the legal challenges associated with the tariffs themselves, which is where any and all money for dividends would com from.<\/p>\n Recently, the Supreme Court of the United States heard arguments in cases challenging the president\u2019s use of emergency\u2010powers law to implement the tariffs. Three lower courts already ruled the approach illegal, and if the tariffs collapse in court, any planned or perceived system resulting in a payout would disappear.<\/p>\n To sum it up, Trump might promise unexpected, too-good-to-be-true dividends, but until he makes clear who\u2019s eligible and when the payout might be made, and until he can categorically clarify the future of his tariff model, the whole thing seems\u2026 optimistic, shall we say.<\/p>\n In any case, probably a good idea that you don\u2019t spend the $2,000 before it actually lands in your account.<\/p>\n Do you think Donald Trump can\/will make good on his promise for sweeping dividends? Let us know in the comments<\/strong><\/p>\n This article originally appeared on\u00a0PolitiFact.<\/em><\/p>\n Over the weekend, President Donald Trump promised Americans $2,000 each from the \u201ctrillions of dollars\u201d in tariff revenue he said his administration has collected.<\/p>\n During his second term, Trump has\u00a0imposed tariffs\u00a0broadly on countries and on specific goods such as drugs, steel and cars.<\/p>\n \u201cPeople that are against Tariffs are FOOLS!,\u201d Trump said in a Nov. 9\u00a0Truth Social post. \u201cWe 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. A dividend of at least $2000 a person (not including high income people!) will be paid to everyone.\u201d<\/p>\n How seriously should people take his pledge? Experts urged caution.<\/p>\n Tariffs are projected to generate well below \u201ctrillions\u201d a year, making it harder to pay each person $2,000. And the administration already said it would use the tariff revenue to either pay for existing tax cuts or to reduce the federal debt.<\/p>\n READ MORE:<\/strong>\u00a05 things to know about tariffs and how they work<\/p>\n Trump\u2019s post came days after the U.S. Supreme Court heard arguments about the\u00a0legality\u00a0of his tariff policy. The justices are\u00a0weighing\u00a0whether Trump has the power to unilaterally impose tariffs under the International Emergency Economic Powers Act. If the justices rule against Trump, much of the expected future tariff revenue would not materialize.<\/p>\n The administration has published no plans for the tariff dividends, and in a Nov. 9 ABC News interview, Treasury Secretary Scott Bessent said he hadn\u2019t spoken to Trump about giving Americans a dividend payment.<\/p>\n Details about a potential payment have been limited to Truth Social posts.<\/p>\n Trump said \u201ceveryone\u201d excluding \u201chigh income people\u201d would get the money, but didn\u2019t explain who qualifies as \u201chigh income.\u201d He also didn\u2019t say whether children would receive the payment.<\/p>\n WATCH:<\/strong>\u00a0What Trump\u2019s tariffs mean for the everyday products we rely on<\/p>\n In a Nov. 10\u00a0Truth Social\u00a0post, Trump said his administration would first pay $2,000 to \u201clow and middle income USA Citizens,\u201d and then use the remaining tariff revenues to \u201csubstantially pay down national debt.\u201d<\/p>\n Trump hasn\u2019t said what form the payments might take. Bessent\u00a0said the dividend\u00a0\u201ccould come in lots of forms, in lots of ways. You know, it could be just the tax decreases that we are seeing on the president\u2019s agenda. You know, no tax on tips, no tax on overtime, no tax on Social Security, deductibility of auto loans. So, you know, those are substantial deductions.\u201d<\/p>\n Analysts said it\u2019s a stretch to rebrand an already promised tax cut as a new dividend.<\/p>\n Trump has previously discussed paying Americans with tariff revenue.<\/p>\n WATCH:<\/strong>\u00a0Trump\u2019s tariffs face Supreme Court test as businesses challenge his power to impose them<\/p>\n \u201cWe have so much money coming in, we\u2019re thinking about a little rebate but the big thing we want to do is pay down debt,\u201d he\u00a0told reporters July 25. \u201cWe\u2019re thinking about a rebate.\u201d<\/p>\n Days later, Sen. Josh Hawley, R-Mo.,\u00a0introduced legislation\u00a0that would give $600 tariff rebate checks to each American adult and child. Hawley\u2019s bill\u00a0has not advanced.<\/p>\n Trump made the\u00a0imposition\u00a0of\u00a0tariffs\u00a0one of his signature 2024 campaign promises. Since taking office in January, he has\u00a0enacted tariffs\u00a0on a scale not seen in the U.S. in almost a century; the current overall average tariff rate is 18%, the highest since 1934, according to\u00a0Yale Budget Lab.<\/p>\n Through the end of October, the federal government\u00a0collected\u00a0$309.2 billion in tariff revenue, compared with $165.4 billion through the same point in 2024, an increase of $143.8 billion.<\/p>\n Erica York, the Tax Foundation\u2019s vice president of federal tax policy,\u00a0estimated\u00a0in a Nov. 9 X post that a $2,000 tariff dividend for each person earning under $100,000 would equal 150 million adult recipients. That would cost nearly $300 billion, York calculated, or more if children qualified. That\u2019s more than the tariffs have raised so far, she said.<\/p>\n The Committee for a Responsible Federal Budget projected that Trump\u2019s proposal could cost $600 billion, depending on how it is structured.<\/p>\n The Trump administration already promised to use tariff revenue for other purposes, including reducing the country\u2019s deficit and offsetting the cost of the GOP tax and spending bill Trump\u00a0signed into law\u00a0in July.<\/p>\n As Trump\u00a0announced\u00a0new tariffs April 2, he said he would \u201cuse trillions and trillions of dollars to reduce our taxes and pay down our national debt.\u201d<\/p>\n Bessent has made the same promise,\u00a0falsely\u00a0saying in July that tariffs were \u201cgoing to pay off our deficit.\u201d<\/p>\n Bessent said in August that he and Trump were \u201claser focused on paying down the debt.\u201d<\/p>\n WATCH:<\/strong>\u00a04 Republicans join Senate Democrats in passing rebuke to Trump\u2019s global tariffs<\/p>\n \u201cI think we\u2019re going to bring down the deficit-to-GDP,\u201d Bessent said in an Aug. 19\u00a0CNBC interview. \u201cWe\u2019ll start paying down debt and then at a point that can be used as an offset to the American people.\u201d<\/p>\n Tariffs are already\u00a0costing Americans money, analysts say.\u00a0Independent\u00a0estimates\u00a0range\u00a0from about $1,600 to $2,600 a year per household. Given the similarity of these amounts to Trump\u2019s proposed dividend, York said it would be more efficient to remove the tariffs.<\/p>\n Joseph Rosenberg, Urban Institute-Brookings Institution Tax Policy Center senior fellow, said a $2,000 dividend in the form of a check would require congressional approval \u2014 and lawmakers have already declined to act on that idea once.<\/p>\n When members of Congress approved the One Big Beautiful Bill Act, \u201cThey had the ability to include a tariff dividend, but they didn\u2019t,\u201d Rosenberg said.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":" nother day, another Donald Trump happening that\u2019s sparked debate. The president has made all manner of lofty promises over the past year, both prior to and since his victory in the presidential…<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":19656,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[6],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-19657","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-breaking-news"],"aioseo_notices":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/news2.watchtowatch.top\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/19657","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/news2.watchtowatch.top\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/news2.watchtowatch.top\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/news2.watchtowatch.top\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/news2.watchtowatch.top\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=19657"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/news2.watchtowatch.top\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/19657\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/news2.watchtowatch.top\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/media\/19656"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/news2.watchtowatch.top\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=19657"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/news2.watchtowatch.top\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=19657"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/news2.watchtowatch.top\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=19657"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}