Treasury secretary tempers expectations on Trump’s $2,000 ‘tariff dividend’

Scott Bessent, the current Treasury Secretary, said Sunday that Trump’s bold $2,000 “tariff dividend” promise might not be the kind of cash handout Americans are imagining.

Speaking on ABC’s This Week, Scott was pressed about Trump’s viral Truth Social post where the former president claimed that Americans, excluding high earners, will receive a $2,000 payout thanks to his tariff policy.

Scott, however, threw cold water on the idea that it’s a traditional stimulus check. He said he hadn’t discussed the post with Trump, but added that the so-called dividend could take several forms and might already be baked into some of the tax breaks Trump pushed earlier this year.

“There are lots of ways that $2,000 could show up,” Scott said, explaining that these benefits might include no taxes on tips, overtime, or Social Security, as well as deductions for auto loans.

These were all rolled into Trump’s new economic policy bill, which passed earlier in the year. But the idea that everyone’s about to get a physical check? Scott didn’t say that. He kept the explanation open and broad.

Court pushes back on Trump’s tariff powers

Trump’s timing on this tariff dividend pitch isn’t random. On November 5, the Supreme Court heard arguments in a case that could unravel his entire tariff agenda.

If the court rules against him, it could kill off the levies he’s been using to squeeze trading partners, and that includes the very tariffs Trump says are generating revenue for these “dividends.”

Some of the justices didn’t seem convinced that Trump’s use of emergency powers to slap tariffs on billions worth of imports was legal. If they strike it down, over $100 billion in refunds could be owed to companies that paid those duties.

A big chunk of the case centers on the “Liberation Day” tariffs Trump launched on April 2, where he put 10% to 50% taxes on most imports based on which country they came from.

Trump’s pitch, of course, is that these tariffs help shrink the U.S. trade deficit, which he blames for damaging American industry. But now his own court picks (like Justice Neil Gorsuch and Amy Coney Barrett) are grilling the legality of it all.

Chief Justice John Roberts made it clear: imposing tariffs is like taxing Americans, and that power belongs to Congress, not the president.

Scott says revenue is rolling in, but questions remain

Even with the legal chaos, Trump is pushing the message that the U.S. is collecting trillions, and that this will help knock down the $37 trillion national debt.

In that same Truth Social post, he claimed this revenue is the reason why Americans will get dividends. But when asked on ABC about that exact post, Scott tried to steer the conversation back to trade policy.

“Over the course of the next few years, we could take in trillions of dollars,” he said. But he emphasized that the real goal of tariffs is fairer trade, not just racking up money.

While Trump’s supporters see tariffs as a weapon to fix broken global trade, the Supreme Court might not care. Three liberal justices (Sonia Sotomayor, Elena Kagan, and Ketanji Brown Jackson) all seemed doubtful about whether Trump’s actions were constitutional. Even Adam White, a constitutional law scholar, said this case looks like a loss for the administration. He described the hearing as an “uphill climb” from start to finish.

If the court strikes down Trump’s approach, it won’t just kill the tariffs. It’ll gut one of the biggest tools he’s used to reshape U.S. trade. It would also be the most aggressive check on Trump’s executive power since he took office.

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