WATCH: White House exploring options for $2,000 tariff rebate checks

By Brett Rowland
The Center Square

The White House is exploring all of its options for sending Americans $2,000 tariff rebate checks, even as the U.S. Supreme Court considers a legal challenge to the president’s use of tariffs.

“The White House is committed to making that happen,” press secretary Karoline Leavitt said Wednesday. “We are currently exploring all legal options to get that done.”

However, Leavitt said she didn’t have a timeline for mailing the checks, something that would likely require congressional approval.

“The president made it clear that he wants to make it happen, so his team of economic advisers is looking into it,” Leavitt said. “When we have an update, we’ll provide one.”

Earlier on Wednesday, Treasury Secretary Scott Bessent told “Fox & Friends” the checks could be subject to an income cap.

“Well, there are a lot of options here that the president’s talking about a $2,000 rebate and those – that would be for families making less than, say, $100,000,” Bessent said.

During the same interview, Bessent said that no decision has been made regarding income caps.

This comes after Bessent told ABC’s “This Week” that the tariff rebate “could come in lots of forms.”

“You know, it could be just the tax decreases that we are seeing on the president’s agenda,” he said. “You know, no tax on tips, no tax on overtime, no tax on Social Security, deductibility of auto loans. So, you know, those are substantial deductions.”

Trump brought up the tariff rebate idea over the weekend and again on Monday.

“All money left over from the $2,000 payments made to low and middle income USA Citizens, from the massive Tariff Income pouring into our Country from foreign countries, which will be substantial, will be used to SUBSTANTIALLY PAY DOWN NATIONAL DEBT,” Trump wrote in a social media post.

Trump provided no details, but at least one group has already worked up an estimate.

The Committee for a Responsible Federal Budget said the math doesn’t work for Trump’s proposal, according to its analysis. The group said that if the payments were structured like the COVID-19 stimulus payments, the $2,000 dividend would cost about $600 billion, which is about twice as much as tariffs are expected to generate this year.

“Current tariffs have raised about $100 billion so far, and will raise about $300 billion per year in the steady state,” CRFB noted. “If paid annually, dividends would be twice as expensive as tariffs.”

CRFB also said the nation’s $38 trillion in debt must be addressed.

“Under no circumstances is the government doing enough to pay down debt, despite the claims to the contrary,” it noted.

Erica York, vice president of Federal Tax Policy at the Tax Foundation, said the proposed rebate checks would add to the nation’s debt.

“The U.S. has not actually taken care of its deficit problem, and sending out $2,000 checks to millions of Americans would make the deficit problem worse,” she wrote on X.

She also noted that Trump’s estimates of how much money tariffs will generate have varied wildly.

“Someone asked me today where the President is getting his various ‘tariff income’ numbers: $2 trillion, $3 trillion, $8 trillion, $17 trillion, and $19 trillion have all been used recently,” she wrote on X. “I honestly have no earthly idea.”

Trump’s rebate idea comes as he seeks to convince voters that he has made things more affordable for working Americans.

Trump’s Liberation Day tariffs have been challenged in federal courts as unconstitutional by some business groups and Blue states, who argue that only Congress has the authority to enact tariffs. Last Wednesday, Supreme Court justices questioned attorneys on both sides of a case challenging Trump’s tariff authority.

Twelve states, five small businesses and two Illinois-based toymakers have challenged Trump’s authority to impose tariffs under a 1977 law without Congressional approval. That law, the International Emergency Economic Powers Act, doesn’t mention the word “tariff” and has never been used to impose tariffs. Trump’s legal team argues that the law is a clear delegation of emergency power, granting the president broad authority to act in times of crisis.

The Supreme Court is expected to decide the case before the end of June, if not sooner.

Trump has said he wants to use tariffs to restore manufacturing jobs lost to lower-wage countries in decades past, shift the tax burden away from U.S. families and pay down the national debt. Economists, businesses and some public companies have warned that tariffs will raise prices on a wide range of consumer products.

A Congressional Budget Office report from August estimated tariffs could bring in $4 trillion over the next decade. That CBO report came with caveats and noted that tariffs will raise consumer prices and reduce the purchasing power of U.S. families.

Earlier in his second administration, Trump and former adviser Elon Musk floated the idea of returning money to taxpayers through the Department of Government Efficiency. Musk’s DOGE initially expected to find $2 trillion in savings by cutting waste fraud and abuse. However, Musk has since left the White House and DOGE was on track to save about $150 billion as of an April cabinet meeting. Those checks never materialized.