Economists: Trump Is Lying About Daily Tariff Revenue

FactCheck.org reports:

President Donald Trump has added to his unsupported claim that the U.S. is making “$2 billion a day” from tariffs by saying that the country was losing $2 billion or $3 billion “a day” under President Joe Biden.

Economists told us that Trump appears to be wrongly comparing a very high – and unlikely – estimate of potential daily revenue from his tariffs with a figure reflecting the average daily U.S. trade deficit during Biden’s last year in office.

As of April 15, the U.S. had received more than $2.3 billion in customs duties and certain excise taxes for the month, according to a Treasury Department daily financial statement. If that total included just tariffs, since excise taxes are different from customs duties, it still would be roughly $156 million per day in revenue.

Read the full article. There’s much more, including scoffing quotes from economists.

Trump Expands on Dubious Daily Tariff Revenue Claimhttps://t.co/OZigjpowXW#DonaldTrump #Tariffs #factcheck pic.twitter.com/jEqN1abGA2

— FactCheck.org (@factcheckdotorg) April 18, 2025