Trump endorses a dramatic shift to the US economy with a weekend announcement that caught everyone off guard. He’s promising $2,000 checks to Americans, paid for entirely with tariff money. My first thought? This sounds familiar. Remember those pandemic stimulus checks? This is giving major flashbacks to 2020, except we’re not in a pandemic anymore. We’re in what Trump calls an economic turnaround, though most people checking their bank accounts might disagree.
The Math Isn’t Making Sense
So Trump says he’s collecting all this tariff revenue and wants to send it back to us. Sounds generous until you realize tariffs work like this: companies pay more to import stuff, then they charge us more for that stuff. The Peterson Institute already figured out these tariffs cost the average household about $1,200 this year. Think about it. The government takes $1,200 from you through higher prices at Target and Walmart.
Then they send you $2,000 back. You’re up $800, right? Except that $2,000 has to come from somewhere, and there are a lot more Americans than there is tariff money. The government has pulled in roughly $195 billion from tariffs so far this year. That’s double what they collected last year, which sounds like a lot. But $2,000 times 100 million people equals $200 billion. And we’ve got more than 100 million adults in this country.
The money just isn’t there. Treasury Secretary Scott Bessent basically said he doesn’t know anything about these rebate checks. When your own Treasury guy is surprised by your economic announcement, that’s not great.
People Are Angry
Consumer confidence dropped this month to almost the lowest it’s ever been. That’s not just bad news. That’s people looking at their grocery bills and car payments and thinking, “What the hell is going on?” CBS ran some polls recently. 61% of Americans think Trump’s policies made the economy worse. That’s higher than Biden ever got, even when inflation was really bad in 2022. Another poll found 59% of people blame Trump for inflation right now. Democrats won in Virginia and New Jersey last week, and they won by talking about money problems. When politicians start winning elections by saying, “Your wallet hurts,” that’s voters sending a message.
The Supreme Court Might Kill This Anyway
There’s another problem Trump probably doesn’t want to talk about. The Supreme Court is looking at whether he even has the legal power to do these tariffs the way he did them. The justices seemed pretty skeptical when they heard arguments. If the Court says no, companies could get refunds on tariffs they already paid. That would wipe out about three-quarters of the tariff money. So much for those checks Trump’s promising.
What About Those Factory Jobs?
Trump keeps saying tariffs are bringing factories back. The White House claims $9 trillion in investments are coming to create American jobs. That number is so big it almost doesn’t mean anything. Meanwhile, the American Enterprise Institute, which isn’t exactly a left-wing group, says Trump’s trade policies will slow down economic growth by 0.4% this year. Job growth is cooling off. Companies are nervous about spending money when they don’t know what tariff is coming next week. Real talk: when businesses are scared, they stop hiring. They sit on their cash and wait. That’s what’s happening now.
The Inflation Thing We Should Worry About
Let’s say those $2,000 checks actually happen. What do you think people will do with that money? They’ll spend it. And when millions of people suddenly have extra cash to spend, but stores don’t have more stuff to sell, prices go up. That’s just how it works. We literally just lived through this. Stimulus checks during COVID helped push inflation to a 40-year high in 2022. Economists agree on this. Do we really want to do it again? Trump endorses dramatic shift to the US economy with these tariff policies, but the shift might be in the wrong direction. You can’t fix inflation by handing out money that was collected through… inflation.
Why Biden Got More Slack
Biden dealt with inflation too, but people kind of gave him a pass because of COVID. Like, yeah, the pandemic messed everything up, so maybe it’s not all Biden’s fault. Trump doesn’t get that excuse. He chose to do these tariffs. Nobody made him. He promised over and over that he’d bring prices down fast. That hasn’t happened. CBS found that 75% of Americans think Trump hasn’t focused enough on lowering prices. More than half of Republicans said that. When your own party is saying you’re not delivering, you’ve got a problem.
What This Actually Means for You
Your grocery bill isn’t going down. That’s just the reality right now. Those $2,000 checks? Don’t start planning what to buy with them. Congress has to approve that money, and it’s not clear if Trump can get the votes. Even if the checks happen, they might make inflation worse. It’s like trying to put out a fire with gasoline. Sure, you’re doing something, but is it helping? Scott Bessent told Fox Business that 2026 is going to be amazing and everyone will feel richer. Politicians always say next year will be better. I’ll believe it when I see it.
The Bottom Line
Nobody knows if this tariff thing will work out in the long run. Maybe factories will come back to Ohio and Michigan. Maybe those jobs will pay well. Maybe in five years we’ll all look back and say it was worth it. But right now? Most people are just trying to pay rent and buy groceries without their credit card getting declined. The economy might look good on paper to people in Washington, but it doesn’t feel good when you’re standing in line at the supermarket. Trump took a big swing with these tariffs. Sometimes big swings work out. Sometimes they don’t. Right now, it’s looking more like a miss than a hit. Your wallet will tell you which one it is.
