President Donald Trump said Wednesday that during his second term, there is a real opportunity to balance the budget, a lofty goal that has eluded four presidents, including Trump as 45th president. Between bringing in an unprecedented $106 billion in tariff revenue thus far, shrinking the size of government thanks to the Supreme Court's rulings on federal layoffs, and continued rescission packages, he said, "I have a real shot."
"We're taking in tremendous amounts of money. You saw that we had a $25 billion surplus last month. And the tariffs haven't really started by comparison to what they will be," Trump told Just The News, No Noise television show, in a wide-ranging interview that aired Wednesday night.
Trump noted that the majority of the current tariffs currently relate to automobiles, car parts, aluminum and steel, but that on August 1, the tariffs will extend to other foreign goods, accelerating tariff revenue that could contribute substantially to an alternative to the Internal Revenue Service (IRS). "We could use the External Revenue Service, and we wouldn't even need the Internal Revenue Service. But the money is very substantial. It's hundreds of billions of dollars."
Estimates project around $300 billion in tariff revenue by the end of the year, and Trump indicated that a number of nations are reaching out to negotiate. "We're not going to be ripped off by every country in the world, both friend and foe, anymore, and they know that. And they're all calling, you know, I sent out letters," Trump said.
