Fact-check: Trump said tariffs collections are ‘almost $2 billion a day.’ Trade experts are doubtful

Before pausing country-by-country tariffs for 90 days, President Donald Trump repeatedly said tariffs were bringing in immense revenue.

At an April 8 executive order signing, Trump said, "We’re taking in almost $2 billion a day in tariffs. Two billion a day."

He repeated the $2 billion figure during an April 8 speech to the National Republican Congressional Committee. Trump did not cite a source for the figure. 

The next day, as financial indicators tumbled, Trump flip-flopped on enacting many of his planned tariffs. He announced a 90-day pause on country-by-country tariffs, except for China, which will have a 125% rate. He also let stand a 10% universal tariff and existing levies on Canada and Mexico.

Had the U.S. already collected $2 billion a day from Trump’s existing tariffs? 

The U.S. Treasury’s April 8 daily statement contradicts that: It showed $192 million in revenues for custom duties and certain excise taxes. 

Customs duties are essentially tariffs, but excise duties are different. Still, the vast majority of the figure should be tariffs, said Robert Koopman, an American University lecturer and former World Trade Organization chief economist.

PolitiFact puts the onus on the speaker to provide evidence, and the Trump administration has provided none. Before and after Trump’s tariff reversal, we asked the White House for Trump’s evidence and received no response.  

The tariff collections figure might approach $2 billion if the now-paused tariff rates were applied to past trade amounts. But that would assume that trade levels would remain unchanged when tariffs are in effect, which economists say is doubtful. It would also mean that Trump is counting future projected revenues as having been "taken in" already. 

"The U.S. is not currently pulling in $2 billion per day from tariffs," whether before or after Trump’s pause, said Michael Stanaitis, who teaches international economics courses at American University.

RELATED: Flip flop: Trump said he wasn’t looking at pausing tariffs. Two days later, he did.

How could the number have been calculated? 

Trump could have arrived at $2 billion by using the same formula as Import Genius, a U.S.-based trade data aggregator.

William George, Import Genius’ research director, said he took the sum of trade based on 2024 data and divided it by 366 days (since 2024 was a leap year) to get an average daily total import value. Then, Import Genius multiplied the daily import values by the tariff rates that were set to kick in to calculate the daily tariff impacts.

Adding those numbers for China, the European Union, Vietnam and Cambodia comes to about $1.8 billion a day. If including the smaller countries, it would increase that number to about $2 billion. George’s calculations assume across-the-board tariffs without industry-specific carve outs such as pharmaceuticals.  (The number rises to about $2.8 billion when Trump’s April 9 higher tariff rate for China is used.)

But this theoretical $2 billion result is unlikely in the real world, economists told PolitiFact. Import Genius acknowledged this; Trump has not.

"Here is the big caveat," George said. Those estimates are "looking at 2024 trade numbers. But these policies are going to tremendously suppress trade. We can’t assume that while massively tariffing (U.S. trading partners), trade volumes will remain the same."

Another caveat is that importers brought in more goods to the U.S. starting in 2024 in anticipation of tariff increases. This means importers might not continue to import at 2024 levels.

"It's trying to have your cake and eat it, too," George said. "It is announcing income under the best possible scenario while looking at the past while not accepting reality that is going to be created by the policies themselves."

It would take time to assess tariffs’ impact; some goods in transit are exempt if they arrive before May 27.

Independent estimates expect the number to fall well short of $2 billion a day. 

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stated on March 11, 2025 in a White House press briefing

“Tariffs are a tax cut for the American people.”

The Tax Foundation, a center-right think tank, estimated about $800 million a day on average in customs duties based on currently applied and scheduled tariffs, as of April 10 — "nowhere near the amount the president claimed," said Erica York, vice president of federal tax policy.

Trump’s decision to pause the tariffs kept a 10% tariff in place on all countries, along with higher tariffs on China and existing tariffs on Mexico and Canada. But even after the pause, economists expressed skepticism about the $2 billion per day figure.

"While I suppose this might be plausible, it is improbable because it assumes that the volume of imports remains about the same," Stanaitis said in an email. "The U.S. has not had this high of an average tariff rate in over a century, and we can expect that the volume of imports will decrease, thereby lowering revenue expectations."

A potential U.S. or worldwide recession would "also be a drag on both consumption of imports and thus tariff revenue," Stanaitis said. If tariffs continue to weaken the dollar, imports will rise in price, further suppressing imports.

Some companies that import goods halted shipments amid the whiplash of tariff news.

"I have spoken with many clients (who) are delaying shipments to the United States in the hope that this chaos will be resolved soon," Peter Quinter, chair of the U.S. customs and international trade law group at Gunster, Yoakley & Stewart law firm, told PolitiFact shortly before Trump announced his tariff reversal.

Our ruling

Trump said, "We’re taking in almost $2 billion a day in tariffs."

Trump provided no evidence for his statement. It’s possible he applied past trade data to project the impact of his  tariffs that have since been rescinded. But such a formula assumes that trade would remain constant in spite of higher tariff rates, and economists said that defies logic.

It will take time to know the tariffs’ impact, but he has not proven that they have already resulted in almost $2 billion a day. The responsibility is on Trump to explain how he arrived at the $2 billion a day figure and he has not done that.

We rate this statement False. 

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