In an awesome announcement made on Thursday, November 27, during a Thanksgiving event with American troops, President Donald Trump revealed that he is continuing to work on plans to mostly replace the federal income tax with revenue garnered from the tariffs he has instituted to protect American industry.
As background, the tariffs were a major part of the president’s 2024 campaign platform, along with his campaign platform in 2016. He and many others see them as a way to add enough protections for American industry that enable it to compete with various countries that lack the environmental protections, worker protections, high wages, and like added costs for industry that help Americans.
He has since focused on them as a revenue generator for the American government rather than just a way of protecting industry, however, and has repeatedly insisted, both during and after the 2024 campaign, that they could be used to replace the income tax.
Doing so without making the federal deficit even larger will be difficult, as offsetting the revenue currently garnered from income taxes would require about $2.5 trillion a year in revenue, roughly 10 times more than what the tariff collections took place in the last fiscal year.
Still, President Trump, in any case, remains optimistic that the idea is feasible. Such is what he told US servicemembers during the Thanksgiving event, a video call, that the income tax could be replaced with the tariffs, something that would be hugely positive for many Americans who struggle under the weight of the income tax.
Doing so, the president said, “Over the next couple of years, I think we’ll substantially be cutting and maybe cutting out completely, but we’ll be cutting income tax. Could be almost completely cutting it because the money we’re taking in is going to be so large.”
Watch him here:
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The president also recently suggested that enough tariff revenue is pouring into the county for the government to be able to send checks to Americans, and that the remainder will be used to start paying down the national debt, which would seem to conflict with the income tax replacement idea.
In that announcement on Truth Social, he said, “All money left over from the $2000 payments made to low and middle income USA Citizens, from the massive Tariff Income pouring into our Country from foreign countries, which will be substantial, will be used to SUBSTANTIALLY PAY DOWN NATIONAL DEBT. Thank you for your attention to this matter!”
In another, similar post, he said, “People 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’s are Highest EVER. 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. A dividend of at least $2000 a person (not including high income people!) will be paid to everyone”
Featured image credit: screengrab from the embedded video