Tariffs May Raise Prices Slightly But Will Deliver Tax Relief for Bottom 50 Percent, Bessent Says

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Money generated by the tariffs will fund proposals to scrap taxes on tips, overtime, and Social Security benefits, the Treasury secretary says.

Treasury Secretary Scott Bessent said consumers could see a one-time price increase of about 2 percent for every 10 percent of new tariffs imposed on foreign goods, and that the revenue from tariffs would be used to reduce living costs for lower-income Americans.

He noted that under President Donald Trumpโ€™s first term, the actual inflationary impact of tariffs was significantly lower.

Bessent made the comments during an April 4 interview with Tucker Carlson, in response to a question about how much tariff revenue the Trump administration expects to collect and how it plans to use it to offset the effects of upcoming tax cuts.

โ€œIf thereโ€™s a 10 percent tariff, then the currency would appreciate 40 percent of thatโ€”so 4 percent of it. Then the producer in the other country would eat about 4 percent, and then the U.S. consumer might have a one-time price adjustment of 2 percent,โ€ Bessent said, citing a standard โ€œclassicalโ€ economic model. โ€œSo in a 10 percent tariff, maybe the consumer pays 2 percent of it.โ€

However, Bessent noted that real-world data suggest the actual cost to consumers may be significantly lower. For instance, he referenced a study showing that the roughly 20 percent tariffs imposed on China during Trumpโ€™s first term increased U.S. consumer prices by just 0.7 percent.

โ€œIf we could put on a 20 percent tariff and have the foreigners pay that, and use that money to bring down our government deficit and keep taxes low here, thatโ€™s a very unique formula that hasnโ€™t been tried in this country for a long time,โ€ Bessent said.

He said that the administration has already collected several hundred million dollars from the new China tariffs, on top of the $35 billion per year generated by tariffs from Trumpโ€™s first term. Bessent projected that annual revenue from the full slate of tariffs announced on April 2โ€”dubbed by Trump as โ€œLiberation Dayโ€โ€”could eventually reach $300 billion to $600 billion.

That income, the treasury secretary added, would fund four key proposals aimed at helping lower-income Americans: eliminating taxes on tips, Social Security, and overtime pay, and making interest payments on U.S.-made auto loans tax-deductible.

โ€œThink what the president is doing here,โ€ Bessent said. โ€œHe is backing into an affordability solution for the bottom 50 percent of wage earners because theyโ€™re the ones who will benefit from all four of those programs.โ€

Byย Tom Ozimek

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