President Donald Trump is acknowledging that his steep new tariffs will bring some economic pain in the United States, but he insists that short-term discomfort will be followed by a period of major prosperity and a renaissance in U.S. manufacturing.
Trump is also claiming that money from tariffs will replace any federal revenue lost because of tax cuts for the United States’ wealthiest Americans. And he is describing Wednesday, April 2 — the day his new tariffs are scheduled to take effect — as “Liberation Day.”
But The New Republic’s Timonthy Noah, in a biting article published on April 2, lays out some major flaws in Trump’s arguments on tariffs and taxes.
READ MORE: Chances of a recession hiked to 35 percent as Trump’s ‘Liberation Day’ tariffs loom
“I’m starting to believe April 2 really will be Liberation Day,” Noah argues. “But instead of liberating us from foreign imports, it will liberate us from any lingering illusion that Trump’s tariffs are about anything more than eliminating the progressive income tax.”
The math in Trump’s claims, according to Noah, doesn’t add up.
“News accounts about President Donald Trump’s tariffs routinely mention that raising revenue is one of Trump’s stated goals,” Noah explains. “But they hurry quickly past this because it’s totally idiotic to think tariffs could ever replace the income tax, even partially, as a meaningful source of federal revenue. And they’re right: This idea is really, really stupid!”
Noah adds, “Where the press goes wrong is in not plumbing the depths of Trump’s commitment to this stupid idea. How stupid? Well, the Internal Revenue Service last year collected $2.96 trillion from income taxes on individual and corporate income, and the United States imported $3.3 trillion in foreign goods. You’ll note these numbers are pretty close. To replace all income-tax revenue, you’d have to impose a tariff of nearly 100 percent on all foreign imports. Not gonna happen!”
READ MORE: ‘A large revenue heist’: WSJ bashes Trump’s ‘ideological fixation on tariffs’
Timothy Noah’s full article for The New Republic is available at this link.
