If I asked you in August 2024 to pick the candidate for president more likely to raise taxes by over $3 trillion, it’s safe to say you probably would not have chosen Donald Trump.
But that’s what Trump may do, even as tariff revenues are going way up, without a single vote in Congress and with hardly a peep from Republicans who normally oppose anything that looks like a tax.
This week, the feds reported collecting $27.7 billion in import duties in July.
How much is that? Think about it this way: Until 2011, the U.S. never collected $27 billion in tariffs in an entire year. This was just one month.
Current estimates put the revenue impact of the Trump tariffs between $300 billion to $400 billion for one year.
Unfortunately, that extra tariff revenue can’t erase the current budget deficit. For example, July’s monthly shortfall was $291 billion, and the federal deficit for fiscal year 2025 stands at over $1.6 trillion.
The tariff revenue jump largely is being paid by American importers. That has led to the somewhat jarring sound of the White House and Republicans in Congress cheering as U.S. companies pay more in taxes, while Democrats wring their hands.
Everything seems upside down.
New figures released this week from Goldman Sachs found U.S. importers were eating about two-thirds of the cost of the tariffs, while 22% had been passed on to consumers. The Goldman Sachs review found foreign exporters are absorbing about 14% of the tariffs.
That amount carried by consumers is expected to increase, and Democrats have been stepping up their attacks, warning voters of rising prices — a political threat they know all too well from the last election.
“Why is President Trump taxing your coffee?” asked U.S. Sen. Raphael Warnock, D-Atlanta.
If you hear Republicans say foreigners are paying the tariffs, that’s sort of like saying Mexico is going to pay for a U.S. border wall.
Maybe the most mind-boggling part of this story is the absence of Congress and how GOP lawmakers have fallen in line behind Trump.
The Founding Fathers certainly did not envision a system where a president would be able to unilaterally increase taxes — while the legislative branch just stood and watched.
The Declaration of Independence has a line in its list of grievances against King George III that could apply to the current Trump tariffs: “For imposing Taxes on us without our Consent.”
Do you think Republicans would be quiet if a Democrat were raising tariffs without a vote in Congress? Of course not.
But with Trump in charge, it’s full speed ahead.
Jamie Dupree has covered national politics and Congress from Washington, D.C., since the Reagan administration. His column appears weekly in The Atlanta Journal-Constitution. For more, check out his Capitol Hill newsletter at jamiedupree.substack.com
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