Americans hoping for $2,000 checks from Trump's tariffs could be disappointed

People waiting for a $2,000 check from President Donald Trump’s suggested “tariff dividend” might not want to hold their breath. Treasury Secretary Scott Bessent said the payout could come in many forms in a Sunday interview, including tax cuts already on the books.

Bessent was asked on ABC about Trump’s Truth Social post earlier Sunday that said tariff skeptics are “fools,” and that everyone but high earners would get “a dividend of at least $2,000 a person” from the policy’s revenues.

The Treasury Secretary said he hadn’t spoken to Trump about the plan, which would require Congress to pass fresh legislation. A tariff dividend could come “in lots of forms,” he said, including tax cuts already established in the One Big Beautiful Bill Act.

“It could be just the tax decreases that we are seeing on the president’s agenda. No tax on tips, no tax on overtime, no tax on Social Security, deductibility on auto loans,” he said. “Those are substantial deductions that are being financed in the tax bill.”

The president has cast the tariffs as a way to regain U.S. wealth and shrink the national debt. He boasted last week that the tariffs were responsible for raising "hundreds of billions of dollars."

But he has also been forced to spend more time defending them over the last week, after the Supreme Court heard arguments for a suit trying to stop the policy. Several justices appeared skeptical of the administration’s arguments in favor of them. 

Trump's Truth Social post on Sunday said the U.S. is “taking in trillions of dollars and will soon begin paying down our enormous debt, $37 trillion.”

Bessent was asked about the statement and clarified: “Over the course of the next few years we could take in trillions of dollars. But the real goal of tariffs is to rebalance trade and make it more fair.”

The Congressional Budget Office has estimated tariffs could produce $3.3 trillion in revenue over the next decade. They are expected to generate between $300 billion and $400 billion annually.

Erica York, a policy expert at the Tax Foundation, posted an analysis of the potential windfall on X, writing that about 150 million adults would likely qualify for the dividend, meaning the cost would be nearly $300 billion.

“The math gets worse accounting for the full budgetary impact of tariffs: a dollar of tariff revenue offsets about 24 cents of income and payroll tax revenue,” she said. “Adjusting for that, tariffs have raised $90 billion of net revenues compared to Trump’s proposed $300 billion rebate.”

She added: “Trump’s tariff and rebate scheme would increase the national debt.”