In Trump’s tariffs are equivalent to one of the largest tax increases in decades CNBC’s Steve Liesman analyses data from the Treasury Department to find that tariffs proposed by President Trump will raise $72 billion in revenue. Previously, PWBM has estimated the economic costs of a trade war and that the impact of a trade war could wipe out economic gains from last year’s tax cuts.
PWBM’s Kent Smetters estimates that President Trump’s tariffs will “cost the median U.S. household with earnings of $61,000 about $500 to $550 a year.” That figure is the equivalent of raising Social Security taxes by 1 percentage point.