President Donald Trump has said that his tariffs plan will result in short-term pain for long-term gain, and Dick Morris, one of his advisers, told Newsmax he thinks that is “very likely.”
“The amount of revenue that Trump is raising from the tariffs is huge,” Morris told Newsmax’s “The Count” Saturday. “In April alone, with tariffs just beginning to take effect and most of them paused, they generated $16 billion in revenue for the government. And it’s looking as if when the program is fully completed, they may generate almost $1 trillion in extra revenue.”
The math, he added, is “pretty simple.”
“We’re charging on $4 trillion of exports and imports, so that’s $400 billion,” said Morris. “And then extra tariffs on China, Europe, Mexico, and Canada add up to another $500 billion to [$]600 billion. And that trillion dollars is 40% of the $2.4 trillion Americans pay in personal income tax.”
This means it’s possible Trump could proposes a “giant tax decrease” in the next few weeks that could be financed with the tariffs, he added.
“It’s a fundamental shift from the department of internal revenue raising money from Americans to external revenue, which is making other countries pay their fair share for our trade,” said Morris.
Meanwhile, Morris said he’d give Trump an “incomplete” grade on his first 100 days in office, just because his policies are only beginning.
“I think that in the next few months, we’re going to have unbelievable positives,” Morris said. “The economy is doing very well at the moment. The tariffs are taking effect, and it’s unbelievable. I think that by the end of the year, you may see very significant reductions in income taxes in the U.S.”
Morris also said he’s confident Congress will pass its budget legislation, which Trump refers to as one “big, beautiful bill,” if not by Memorial Day then by July 4.
“The only hang-up right now is Medicaid,” he said. “Trump is saying, ‘I’m not going to cut Medicaid. What I’m going to do is roll it back to what it was before the pandemic.'”
But other than that, the bill is “going to go through just fine,” Morris said.
