WASHINGTON ‒ President Donald Trump's proposal to send Americans $2,000 rebate checks from money collected through his tariffs is projected to cost $600 billion a year ‒ about double what the United States is expected to generate from the new duties on imports.

The Committee for a Responsible Federal Budget, a nonpartisan nonprofit that studies fiscal policy, released the projections on Nov. 10 after Trump over the weekend pitched his idea on Truth Social. The president touted "taking in Trillions of Dollars" and said, "A dividend of at least $2000 a person (not including high income people!) will be paid to everyone."

While Trump did not specify income requirements for recipients, the center's analysis assumes the checks would be designed similar to the stimulus payments distributed directly to Americans during the COVID-19 pandemic. The COVID-era checks from the 2020 CARES Act in Trump's first term included payments for adults and additional money per child for individual taxpayers earning up to $75,000, or $150,000 for joint income tax filers.

Under the same criteria, a single round of Trump's tariff dividend checks would cost about $6 billion. However, the new tariffs imposed this year are projected to generate only about $300 billion a year. As of the end of October, Trump's new tariffs had generated an additional $100 billion in tax revenue.

Over a 10-year period, the dividends would increase deficits by $6 trillion if rebate checks are distributed annually, according to the CRFB's analysis.

Trump brought up his idea during Nov. 10 remarks to reporters in the Oval Office. "We're going to issue a dividend to our middle-income people and lower-income people ‒ about $2,000," Trump said. "And we’ll use the remaining tariffs to lower our debt. We’re going to be lowering our debt, which is a national security thing.”

Trump says he feels 'very good' about tariff SCOTUS case

The president's pitch come just days after the Supreme Court signaled it might rule against his use of emergency powers as legal justification to issue his sweeping tariffs on imports from across the world.

All three of the court's liberal justices expressed clear resistance to upholding Trump’s power to impose emergency tariffs in a legal challenge brought by businesses. And at least three of the six conservative justices – Chief Justice John Roberts and Justices Neil Gorsuch and Amy Coney Barrett – sounded skeptical of the Trump administration’s arguments.

Nevertheless, Trump expressed optimism about the fate of his tariffs. "Nobody thinks it's going to be reversed. I think we had a very good court case," he said on Nov. 10.

If the court rules Trump's tariffs are illegal, the administration would be required to return the revenue it collected, spoiling any hopes the dividend checks could come to fruition.

Any proposal for rebate checks from tariff revenue would require approval from Congress, which holds purse power when it comes to spending public dollars.

A pull introduced by Sen. Josh Hawley, R-Missouri last summer to give at least $600 from tariff revenue to qualifying Americans did not make it out of committee.

Earlier this year, Trump said he would consider cutting Americans checks from savings produced by the government-slashing work of Elon Musk's Department of Government Efficiency, or DOGE. Nothing came of those discussions, however.

Contributing: Kinsey Crowley of USA TODAY

Reach Joey Garrison on X @joeygarrison.

This article originally appeared on USA TODAY: Trump's $2,000 rebate checks would cost $6 billion ‒ double the new revenue from tariffs

Reporting by Joey Garrison, USA TODAY / USA TODAY

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