A bogus online post falsely claims that this month the federal government will issue “a $2,000 direct deposit payment for eligible U.S. citizens” in three phases from Nov. 10 through Nov. 30.
There are no scheduled direct deposits, and no checks are in the mail.
President Donald Trump has only talked about using revenue collected from tariffs, or customs duties, on imported foreign goods to reduce the federal debt and make “rebate” or “dividend” payments to Americans. He reiterated his wishes on Nov. 9.
He made his pitch again the next day while taking press questions in the Oval Office.
“Without tariffs, we would be — this country would be in such trouble, as they were for many years,” he said. “That’s why we owe $38 trillion. And one of the things we’re going to do is issue a dividend of about $2,000 to our middle- and lower-income people. And we’re going to use the remaining tariffs to lower our debt.
However, the U.S. has not made “trillions of dollars” from tariffs, as the president’s remarks may suggest. He appears to reach “trillions” by counting unspecified financial investments in the U.S. that companies or countries have pledged to make, which isn’t the same as “trillions” in federal government revenue. We asked the White House for an accounting of Trump’s “trillions” calculation, but we did not get a response.
Multiple experts on fiscal policy have pointed out that, based on tariff revenue alone, the math for Trump’s proposed dividend and debt payment plan doesn’t quite work.
“The President just proposed a $2,000 tariff ‘dividend’ for each person, excluding high-income earners,” Erica York, vice president of federal tax policy for the pro-business Tax Foundation, wrote in an X thread that began on Nov. 9. “If the cutoff is $100,000, 150M adults would qualify, for a cost near $300 billion. If kids qualify, that grows.”
“Only problem,” York said, “new tariffs have raised $120 billion so far.” However, she noted that the Tax Foundation estimates that net revenue from Trump’s tariffs would equal about $216 billion in fiscal year 2026, which began Oct. 1. (Including preexisting tariffs, the government, according to Treasury Department data, collected nearly $195 billion total in customs duties in fiscal year 2025, which ended Sept. 30.)
The Committee for a Responsible Federal Budget estimates that tariffs will raise about $300 billion per year, starting in 2026. But the nonpartisan group said that still may not be enough, depending on who qualified for Trump’s payments.
“Assuming these dividends are designed like the COVID-era Economic Impact Payments, which went to both adults and children, we estimate each round of payments would cost about $600 billion,” CRFB said.
The full pandemic payments, which were made at three different times between 2020 and 2021, went to single tax filers with less than $75,000 in gross income and to married couples filing jointly who made less than $150,000. Payments began to phase out or were reduced for individuals and couples earning more than those thresholds.
CRFB said that, on a revenue-neutral basis, the dividend payments could be made “every other year, starting in early 2027,” if Trump planned to issue them regularly. But if the Supreme Court agrees with lower courts and rules that the majority of the tariffs that Trump unilaterally imposed this year are illegal, the remaining tariffs on imports would only raise enough money to make payments after seven years, CRFB said.
In addition, using all the tariff revenue for rebates or dividends would leave no money to pay down the federal debt, as Trump also said he wants to do. In fact, issuing such rebates would increase the debt (which now totals $38 trillion, as Trump said, including money the government owes to itself).
“Using all the tariff revenue for rebates would push debt to 127% of Gross Domestic Product (GDP) by 2035 instead of 120% under current law; if $2,000 dividends are paid annually, debt would reach 134% GDP,” CRFB said.
Furthermore, while the nonpartisan Tax Policy Center also estimates that tariffs Trump had announced through Oct. 23 will raise close to $300 billion in 2026 ($299 billion), it said those same policies “will impose an average burden of about $2,600 per tax unit in calendar year 2026,” reducing the economic impact of any dividend payments to individuals.
That burden on households is because the tariffs are paid mainly by U.S. importers – not foreign countries, as Trump has said – who often pass at least some of their costs onto American consumers through higher prices on goods.
The Tax Foundation estimates a lower average tariff burden on households, but it would still be $1,600 in 2026, the organization says.
White House Press Secretary Karoline Leavitt said in a Nov. 12 press briefing that the Trump administration is serious about making the dividend payments a reality.
“The White House is committed to making that happen, yes, and we are currently exploring all legal options to get that done,” she said when a reporter asked about Trump’s recent comments. “I don’t have a timeline for you or any further details, but I can confirm for you that the president made it clear he wants to make it happen.”
The president’s “team of economic advisers is looking into it,” she said.
In an interview on Fox News on Nov. 12, Treasury Secretary Scott Bessent said there are “a lot of options here that the president’s talking about,” including $2,000 rebates for “families making less than, say, $100,000,” and those options are “in discussion” among White House officials.
“What we did with the tax bill is actually financing the president’s no tax on tips, overtime, Social Security, and the big refunds you’re going to see are a result of that,” Bessent said. “So that’s another payment to the American people.” In addition, he said, starting next year, the law will provide $1,000 for investment accounts — so-called “Trump accounts” — for newborns. “So, that’s another $1,000 for working families,” Bessent said.
We’d note that any dividend payments, like the three rounds of stimulus payments issued during the pandemic, would have to be authorized by Congress.
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-- By Robert Douglass
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