Trump promises a $2,000 dividend, but the check hasn’t arrived in the mail yet

You can wait to spend President Donald Trump’s $2,000 tariff windfall until you have a check in hand.

Trump proposed the new payments to low- and middle-income Americans in a weekend social media post. However, some experts have questioned the calculations behind that idea, and a senior member of his administration suggested that the “return” might come from the tax cuts passed in July, rather than from any new policy.

“We’ve got trillions of dollars and we’ll soon start paying down our massive $37 trillion in debt. Record investment in the United States, factories and mills are going up everywhere,” Trump said on social media on Sunday. “Dividends of at least $2,000 per person (not including high-income people!) will be distributed to everyone.”

Trump stressed the idea on Monday, saying his import taxes raise enough money to send $2,000 payments along with enough to reduce the national debt.

“All remaining funds from the $2,000 payments made to low- and moderate-income United States citizens, from the massive tariff income flowing into our country from foreign nations, which will be significant, will be used to substantially pay down the national debt,” he wrote.

Do the numbers add up? Erika York, vice president of tax policy at the Tax Foundation, estimated that the proposed cut would cost $300 billion, assuming the $2,000 checks go to adults who make less than $100,000 annually. Meanwhile, the tariffs have brought in $120 billion in revenue so far.

It hasn’t been entirely positive for the federal budget, York said, since the costs of tariffs have led some companies to cut spending on other things, which has reduced revenue the government collects from other taxes. Every dollar of tariffs collected reduces payroll and income taxes by 24%, according to the Tax Foundation, which is estimated based on the model used by the Joint Committee on Taxation. With that in mind, federal revenues only amount to $90 billion, less than a third of the estimated cost of rebate checks.

The idea of ​​discounting may contradict the stated purpose of the tariffs. A Trump administration lawyer said last week that the tariffs are not taxes and are not intended to raise revenue. Trump said that the tariffs are primarily aimed at reviving American manufacturing.

Treasury Secretary Scott Besent suggested in a television appearance on Sunday that Trump’s dividend idea represents not a new policy, but rather the amount people can expect to save from a series of tax breaks passed by Congress in July, which take effect next year.

“A $2,000 dividend can come in many forms and in many ways,” he said on ABC’s This Week. “It may just be the tax cuts that we’re seeing on the president’s agenda. You know, no tax on tips, no tax on overtime, no tax on Social Security, the auto loan deduction…those are big deductions that are funded in the tax bill.”

It was unclear Monday whether Congress would support the rebate checks. Republican Sen. Josh Hawley in July introduced legislation to send $600 duty rebate checks to every adult, but it did not get a vote.

Trump in February proposed sending the rebates based on savings achieved by the DOGE cost-cutting task force. DOGE only found a fraction of the savings it promised, and the checks were never cashed.