Now, Trump says there’s a ‘real chance’ US tariffs could replace income tax | World News
US President Donald Trump said Tuesday that there is “real chance” that he could raise enough funds from the tariffs that it could ‘replace’ income tax, citing a time in the late 1800s when the Washington implemented tariffs and raised such funds.
“There is a chance that the money is so great that it could replace” income tax, Trump said in a Fox Noticias interview .”You know, in the old days, about 1870 to 1913, the tariffs were the only form of money. And that’s when our nation was relatively the richest. We were the richest.”
Any action on income tax would have to be passed Congress, which legislates on tax policy. Trump has hoped to raise money through tariffs in order to enact a tax bill being considered Congress to remove taxes on tips and Social Security and fulfill other campaign promises.
Story continues below this ad
The President said during the interview that there was a committee formed in the 1880s to “get rid of money.”
Could Trump’s tariffs mark the end of one of America’s taxes? The president shares his vision with @RCamposDuffy.
Watch the full interview on @FoxNoticiasEnX today at 4p ET: https://t.co/DwFLWB4osI pic.twitter.com/e9xGn1aIPt
— Fox News (@FoxNews) April 15, 2025
“And this committee’s sole purpose was how to dispose of it, who to give it to, what do we do? And then, brilliantly, in 1913, they went to the income tax system. Then around 1931 or 1932, they tried to bring back tariffs, but it was too late,” Trump told Campos-Duffy. “And they loved to blame tariffs for the Great Depression. But the Great Depression came before they put the tariffs on.”
When asked about the revenue generated tariffs, he explained, “Billions and billions of dollars and, hundreds of billions of dollars over a period of a year. Before I gave a little bit of a pause to lower just a little bit because, you know, it’s a transition. You have to be, you have to have a little flexibility. But we were making two billion and three billion dollars a day. We never made money like that.”
Trump put a 90-day pause on reciprocal, customised tariffs he had imposed on dozens of nations on Wednesday, which was an abrupt change of course after saying there would not be a pause to them, just negotiations.
Simultaneously, the Trump adminration upped the ante on its tariff on China to 245 per cent.
© IE Online Media Services Pvt Ltd
Expand
