President Trump’s tariffs have added a record haul for US coffers since he rolled out the controversial “Liberation Day” policy on April 2 — but the added revenue still fell well short of the administration’s rosy projections.
Customs duties generated for the second quarter — spanning April to June — hit $64 billion, surpassing the total raised during the same period last year by nearly $47 billion, according to US Treasury data released on Friday.
The $64 billion tariff windfall in the second quarter amounts to roughly $70 million a day for the three-month period.
Trump had bragged that the levies were bringing in “$3 billion a day” during a meeting with the president of El Salvador at the White House shortly after launching the global trade war.
Since then, the administration his imposed a universal 10% tariff on most nations, with higher duties on certain sectors like steel and foreign cars — while pausing stiffer reciprocal taxes on most trading partners until Aug. 1.
A report last month by the non-partisan Congressional Budget Office said that if Trump’s inital tariff plans became permanent, they were expected to reduce the federal deficit by $2.8 trillion over the next decade.
The report was released before Trump’s Big Beautiful Bill squeaked by in Congress. The tax and spending bill, signed into law by Trump on July 4, is projected to add nearly $4 trillion to the ballooning national debt by 2035.
A White House official, responding to ongoing debate about the erratic policy, said the money raked in from tariffs show that “there’s a method here.”
“It’s not just that countries aren’t retaliating, what we are consistently seeing now is that the president has leveraged use of tariffs, leveraged access to [the] US economy to consistently negotiate better trade arrangements with the US,” the White House official told The Post on Wednesday.
President Trump told top GOP lawmakers late Tuesday that he will likely fire Fed Chair Jerome Powell, sources said — but the president walked back the idea on Wednesday, calling it “highly unlikely.”
Two sources who spoke to The Post anonymously confirmed an earlier report by Bloomberg News, citing people familiar with the matter, which said Trump discussed the plan with GOP lawmakers in Congress on Tuesday.
An administration insider close to the commander-in-chief, speaking on the condition of anonymity, confirmed to The Post the nature of those talks with congressional Republicans.
“They expressed approval for firing him. The president indicated he likely will soon,” the source said.
But after headlines about Trump’s conversation with GOP lawmakers surfaced on Wednesday, Trump downplayed the situation to reporters at the White House. He also denied a New York Times report that he had drafted a letter to fire Powell.
“We’re not planning on doing anything,” Trump said. “I don’t rule out anything, but I think it’s highly unlikely. Unless he has to leave for fraud.”
The president added, however, that he might try to remove Powell for cause over a lavish, $2.5 billion renovation of the Fed’s headquarters that was exclusively reported on by The Post.
The headlines sent the Dow yo-yoing on Wednesday — plunging nearly 800 points following the initial headlines and then bouncing back after Trump tamped down speculation at the White House. The blue-chip index was recently down 24.63 points at 43.998,66.
Some sources suggested this latest move was a ploy to turn the screws on the man whom the president appointed in 2018.
“I think this is all pressure for him to go voluntarily,” one administration bigwig told The Post. --->READ MORE HERE
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