'When did I do that?' Trump says about $2,000 tariff dividend checks
- - 'When did I do that?' Trump says about $2,000 tariff dividend checks
Mike Snider, USA TODAYJanuary 14, 2026 at 3:04 AM
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'When did I do that?' Trump says about $2,000 tariff dividend checks
Those $2,000 dividend checks President Donald Trump has been talking about for months seemed to have slipped his mind during a recent interview with The New York Times. And the payment date appears to have shifted, too.
Trump has been pitching the idea of dividend rebates from tariff revenues since July 2025. During a Dec. 2, 2025 Cabinet meeting, the president again discussed the potential checks, saying, "Next year is projected to be the largest tax refund season ever, and we're going to be giving back refunds out of the tariffs, as we have taken in literally trillions of dollars."
But during a two-hour interview on Jan. 7 with four White House correspondents from The New York Times, Trump asked, "I did do that? When did I do that?" when reporter Katie Rogers asked about when Americans could expect the $2,000 tariff dividend checks he promised, according to the interview transcript.
As Rogers replied, "Well, I mean, your," the president continued, "Yeah, I’m thinking. Well, I did $1,776 for the military," he said, referencing "warrior dividends" sent to military personnel last month.
Then, reporter Tyler Pager returned to the question of when Americans would get the checks. In response, Trump said, "Well, I am going to – the tariff money is so substantial. That’s coming in, that I’ll be able to do $2,000 sometime. I would say toward the end of the year."
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Trump's tariff dividend checks were to come mid-2026
While speaking to reporters in the Oval Office on Nov. 17, 2025, President Trump said the tariff dividend checks would be issued "probably in the middle of next year," amounting to "thousands of dollars for individuals of moderate income, middle income."
A week earlier on Nov. 10, Trump said the $2,000 payments would be made "to low and middle income USA Citizens," in a post on Truth Social.
When talking to The New York Times, Trump was asked by reporter Zolan Kanno-Youngs, "Don’t you need Congress? Don’t you need Congress to help you with that?"
"No, I don’t believe we do," Trump said. "We have it coming in from other sources."
In the past, Treasury Secretary Scott Bessent has said any tariff revenue refund would require legislation. Another possible hurdle, the Supreme Court is expected to rule as early as this week on whether Trump's global tariffs on imports are illegal.
Some disagree with proposed tariff dividend checks
Some experts have said $2,000 checks would not be the best use of tariff revenue. For starters, the revenue from tariffs falls short of that needed for a proposed rebate, says Scott Lincicome, vice president of general economics at the Cato Institute, a libertarian think tank.
"Sending out checks is inefficient and distortive wealth redistribution. It’s far better to just nix the tariffs and let Americans keep their dollars in the first place," he told USA TODAY.
The Committee for a Responsible Federal Budget, a nonpartisan nonprofit that studies fiscal policy, estimates a round of tariff rebate payments would cost $600 billion, while tariff revenue is projected to raise about $300 billion per year.
"With our national debt quickly approaching an all-time high and annual budget deficits approaching $2 trillion per year, it is imperative that policymakers focus on actually reducing deficits and putting debt on a downward path," the CRFB said. "Additional tariff revenue should be used to reduce deficits – as several administration figures have stated is the intention – instead of passing that revenue onto taxpayers in the form of cash dividends."
Mike Snider is a national trending news reporter for USA TODAY. You can follow him on Threads, Bluesky, X and email him at mikegsnider & @mikegsnider.bsky.social & @mikesnider & [email protected].
This article originally appeared on USA TODAY: Trump forgets $2,000 tariff dividend checks, but says they will come
Source: “AOL Money”
