Tariff receipts topped $16 billion in April, a record that helped cut the budget deficit
By: Jeff Cox (CNBC via MSN)
This sounds like another win for the United States. Just more bad news for those on the other side of the aisle.
S E E D E D C O N T E N T
- Customs duties totaled $16.3 billion for the month, some 86% above the $8.75 billion collected during March and more than double the $7.1 billion a year ago.
- The fiscal year-to-date deficit fell to $1.05 trillion, which is still 13% higher than a year ago.
Receipts from U.S. tariffs hit a record level in April as revenue from President Donald Trump's trade war started kicking in.
Customs duties totaled $16.3 billion for the month, some 86% above the $8.75 billion collected during March and more than double the $7.1 billion a year ago, the Treasury Department reported Monday.
That brought the year-to-date total for the duties up to $63.3 billion and more than 18% ahead of the same period in 2024. Trump instituted 10% across-the-board tariffs on U.S. imports starting April 2, which came on top of other select duties he had leveled previously.
While the U.S. is still running a massive budget deficit, the influx in tariffs helped shave some of the imbalance for April, a month in which the Treasury generally runs a surplus because of the income tax filing deadline hitting mid-month.
The surplus totaled $258.4 billion for the month, up 23% from the same period a year ago. That cut the fiscal year-to-date total to $1.05 trillion, which is still 13% higher than a year ago.
Also on an annual basis, receipts rose 10% in April from 2024, while outlays declined 4%. Year to date, receipts are up 5%, while expenditures have risen 9%.
High interest rates are still posing a budgetary burden. Net interest on the $36.2 trillion national debt totaled $89 billion in April, higher than every other category except Social Security. For the fiscal year, net interest has run to $579 billion, also second highest of any outlay.
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It's a heck of a thing when a President keeps promises. Kind of makes the opposition look silly, doesn't it?
As if help was needed..........
Keeping a promise to do something that is profoundly stupid or cruel is nothing to feel good about.
Hey MAGA! Have you figured out yet that tariffs are simply taxes for American companies that will reflect onto product prices for you to pay for??? This administration is excited that they cost American companies over 16 million dollars last month alone.
That doesn't make any sense.
Sorry, those are the smallest words I can use. Perhaps this will help.
Read what you wrote again.
I think you may be misinterpreting the facts. What they're saying here is that the US took in $16 billion in tariffs in April when the normal amount would be about $7 billion like it was last year. So Trumps tariffs have doubled the US tax revenue from tariffs for the month of April, which sounds like a good thing.
The problem is that the US financial markets are still down more than $2 trillion because of the irresponsible Trump tariffs, and that's after the 1100 pt jump this news made today. So Trump lost the American people over two trillion so far but we earned about $8 billion in a month! It will only take us a short 20 years at those profits to get our money back... Hurray! Thanks Trump! /s
Nope. Tariffs are paid by American companies when they import foreign goods.
Reading is fundamental...
From the above article...
Customs duties totaled $16.3 billion for the month, some 86% above the $8.75 billion collected during March and more than double the $7.1 billion a year ago, the Treasury Department reported Monday.
It's not a good thing for the American companies that are paying for the increased revenue.
True, though I doubt only American companies were paying that increase and more than likely those costs were passed on to the consumer so really the American consumer paid the US government 7 billion more than last April due to the Trump tariffs. Either way, whether a foreign company pays more or the consumer does, they're not what conservatives are clearly representing them as.
You are correct, I just did not feel the need to trace those taxes all the way to the consumers.
And judging from Trump's continuing statements about tariffs, after 4 years of being POTUS, he still thinks that the foreign countries are paying them.
Who's funding this surplus ?
Year-to-date, the Trump administration is actually spending more money than the Biden administration did last year. So, don't just blame interest rates. Blame the waste, fraud, and abuse of the administration. They'll be celebrating this month with a $45 million parade that no one asked for.
You even highlighted one of the main drivers (increased borrowing costs) and still think its "the waste, fraud, and abuse of the administration." That's as dumb as thinking you can balance the budget by cutting waste, fraud and abuse. Interest and increasing entitlement costs are driving spending. Everything else is a rounding error at this point.