The president said the tariffs imposed on foreign nations have generated substantial revenue.
President Donald Trump said on Nov. 27 that the United States could eliminate income taxes over the next couple of years due to revenue generated from tariffs.
Trump made the remarks during a Thanksgiving call with U.S. service members, saying the tariffs he imposed on foreign nations have generated substantial revenue and pushed companies to build their manufacturing facilities in the United States to avoid tariff costs.
“We’re taking in hundreds of billions of dollars like we’ve never done before. And some of that’s going to go back in a form of a sort of dividend to our people, but much of it’s going to go toward reducing debt,” he 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.”
Trump said in an April 27 post on social media that Americans, particularly those earning less than $200,000 a year, might see their income taxes reduced or “completely eliminated” once his tariffs on foreign imports were implemented.
Data from the Penn Wharton Budget Model, which is based on Department of the Treasury information, showed the United States has collected more than $320 billion in customs and excise taxes as of November, up from roughly $171 billion at the same point in 2024.
The surge in tariff revenues resulted from Trump’s trade policies, which established a 10 percent baseline levy on most imports and a series of reciprocal duties applied to trading partners, with some nations facing duties as high as 40 percent.
The Tax Policy Center estimates that Trump’s 2025 tariff actions have lifted the average U.S. tariff rate to 17.6 percent, with revenue projected to total about $2.3 trillion from 2026 to 2035.
The group estimates that the tariffs will add roughly $256 billion to federal receipts next year and increase the average household’s costs by about $2,200. The group cautions that its figures are “highly uncertain,” as they reflect complex stacking rules and do not include the impact of foreign countermeasures or broader macroeconomic impacts on the U.S. economy.
Trump said in a Nov. 24 post on Truth Social that he expects tariff revenues to skyrocket as global buyers run out of stockpiled imports they had kept to avoid tariffs.
