Trump's Tariffs Deliver Record $23 Billion Revenue In May

As President Donald Trump’s trade policies started to fill government coffers.U.S. tariff revenues reached an all-time high in May.  According to the May 28 Daily Treasury Statement, revenues from “customs and certain excise taxes” climbed to a record high of $23.28 billion this month, up from $17.431 billion in April.

May was the first full month that Trump’s levies took effect. Most of the tax collections occurred on May 22, exceeding $16 billion.

Shortly after his April 2 “Liberation Day” announcement, the administration imposed 10 percent tariffs on nearly every country in the world.

Fiscal year-to-date—the federal government’s fiscal year runs from October 1 to September 30—tariff revenues total $93.85 billion.

Last month, the CBP (Cutsoms & Border Protection)  conducted 33 audits, leading to the collection of $117 million in duties and fees owed to the U.S. government. Officials found that imported goods had been “improperly declared.”

Despite the sizable increase in tariff revenues, it still accounts for a relatively small portion of overall government receipts.   In April, Washington generated $850 billion in revenues, meaning levies represented approximately 2 percent of the total amount.

Despite the president’s estimates, tariffs are only producing less than $1 billion per day for the U.S. government.

During a meeting with Salvadoran President Nayib Bukele last month, Trump stated that the United States was “taking in billions and billions of dollars” from his trade agenda.  “We were losing 2 billion a day. ... Now we’re making $3 billion a day,” he said.

Looking at Revenue Projections

Senior administration officials have presented substantial revenue projections based on the president’s tariff plans.

In a March 31 interview with “Fox News Sunday,” the president’s senior trade adviser, Peter Navarro, forecast that tariffs could raise approximately $600 billion a year, or about $6 trillion over a decade.

“The message is that tariffs are tax cuts, tariffs are jobs, tariffs are national security. Tariffs are great for America. They will make America great again,” Navarro said.

Economists have presented more conservative estimates.

The Tax Foundation, for example, anticipates Trump’s higher import duties will lead to more than $2.1 trillion in revenue over 10 years.

Officials, including Treasury Secretary Scott Bessent, have suggested that tariffs could be a major source of income for the federal government. Speaking to reporters at a White House press briefing, Bessent stated that tariff revenue could “give income tax relief.”

This would, however, be only temporary. According to the senior Cabinet secretary, reliance on tariff revenue would diminish as more companies onshore and reshore manufacturing, bolstering domestic income.

“If we’re successful, tariffs would be a melting ice cube, in a way, because you’re taking in the revenues as the manufacturing facilities are built in the U.S., and there should be some level of symmetry between the taxes we begin taking in with the new industry from the payroll taxes as the tariffs decline,” Bessent told CNBC’s “Squawk Box”  

The administration’s tariffs have now faced legal hurdles, which might throw a wrench in fiscal projections.  A three-judge panel at the New York-based U.S. Court of International Trade blocked the president’s global tariffs. A second court also handed down an order blocking Trump’s use of emergency powers to implement tariffs. However, an appeals court ruled that the president’s tariffs could stay in place.

Scores of White House officials have shrugged off the legal roadblocks.

 In a May 30 interview with CNBC’s “Squawk Box,” U.S. Trade Representative Jamieson Greer stated that the president has “other tools” to implement his trade agenda.

“All these things are on the table,” Greer said. “The reality is, we have this enormous trade deficit. It got worse over the Biden years, and if we don’t fix the global trading system, it’s just going to get even worse going forward. We have to fix it.”

According to the Census Bureau, the U.S. goods trade deficit narrowed sharply in April, declining to $87.6 billion. This is down 46 percent from the record high of $162.3 billion registered in March.