US3 min(s) read
Donald Trump has provided an update on the $2,000 tariff-funded payments he first floated last year, but the president stopped short of confirming that the checks will actually be sent.
Trump has repeatedly talked about the idea of giving Americans a “tariff dividend” worth around $2,000, claiming the payments would be funded by money raised through his administration’s tariffs.
However, no such payments have been made so far, and it remains uncertain whether the scheme will ever become reality.
During an interview with NBC Nightly News host Tom Llamas on Wednesday, Trump was asked directly which Americans would qualify for the payments and when they could expect to receive them.
Trump initially appeared confident about the proposal.
“We'd make it — I — I'm gonna — I'm looking at it very seriously. I'm the only one who can do it because I'm taking in hundreds of billions of dollars of money from tariffs —” he said.
Llamas then pushed the president for a clearer answer, asking whether he could “promise some Americans will get those checks?”
“Oh yeah, sure. I can — I can do that,” Trump replied.
However, Trump immediately appeared to walk back that assurance, adding: “I haven't made the commitment yet, but I may make the commitment.”
Llamas then asked whether that meant the payments were not yet “a done deal.”
Rather than providing a definitive answer, Trump shifted the conversation towards the $1,776 “warrior dividend” recently paid to members of the US military.
Trump has previously claimed that those payments were funded by tariff revenue. However, that claim has been disputed, with reporting indicating the money actually came from supplemental housing funding that military personnel were already due to receive.
Trump has previously given several different indications about when Americans could receive his proposed tariff payments.
During an interview with The New York Times in January, he appeared surprised when asked about the proposal.
“I did do that? When did I do that?” Trump initially responded.
When questioned further, however, he again pointed to the amount of money being generated through tariffs.
“The tariff money is so substantial,” Trump said. “That's coming in, that I'll be able to do $2,000 sometime. I would say toward the end of the year.”
That timeframe would represent a significant shift from an earlier prediction by Trump, who had said the payments would arrive “probably in the middle of next year, a little bit later than that.”
The president has also previously suggested that congressional approval may not be necessary to distribute the money.
When asked whether he would need Congress to approve the payments, Trump said: “No, I don't believe we do. We have it coming in from other sources.”
However, his own Treasury Secretary, Scott Bessent, has previously offered a much more cautious assessment.
Asked about the proposed payments during a Fox News interview in November, Bessent said: “We will see. We need legislation for that.”
Bessent subsequently suggested that tariff revenue could potentially be distributed in different ways, meaning Americans may not necessarily receive a straightforward $2,000 cheque similar to the stimulus payments issued during Trump's first presidency.
For now, Trump has continued to promote the possibility of the payments without providing a firm date, eligibility criteria or confirmation that Congress will approve the scheme.
That means the much-discussed $2,000 tariff checks remain a proposal rather than a guaranteed payment for American households.
