The effort underscores the importance that the Trump White House has placed on tariffs as a revenue-raiser at a time when the federal government is facing huge annual budget deficits for decades into the future. Previous administrations, by contrast, used tariffs more sparingly to narrowly protect specific industries. Erica York, vice president of federal tax policy at the Tax Foundation, noted that the first investigation covers roughly 70% of imports, while the second would cover nearly all of them. “That breadth suggests the goal isn’t to address the issues at hand, but instead to recreate a sweeping tariff tool,” she said. Trump sees tariffs as a way to force foreign countries to essentially help pay the cost of U.S. government services, even though all recent economic studies find that American companies and consumers are paying the duties, including ones from the Federal Reserve Bank of New York and economists at Harvard University. In his state of the union address last month, Trump even touted his tariffs as a potential replacement for the income tax, which would return the United States’ tax regime to the late 19th century. Trump also wants tariffs to help pay for the tax cuts he extended in key legislation last year. The tax cut legislation is expected, according to the most recent estimates by the nonpartisan Congressional Budget Office, to add $4.7 trillion to the national debt over a decade, while all Trump's duties, including ones not struck down by the court, were projected to offset about $3 trillion — or two-thirds of that cost. more on link https://apnews.com/article/tariffs-trump-trade-275f146dbc591bab1730a911e04aa8ea
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March 14, 2026
Trump seeks to close $1.6 trillion revenue gap with raft of new tariffs
