Are tariffs making US ‘rich as hell’ as Trump claims?

US President Donald Trump has yet again claimed that the tariffs are making the country ‘rich as hell’.

Trump, delivering a speech to top US commanders at the at the Marine Corps Base in Quantico, claimed that America was raking in ‘trillions of dollars’ as a result of tariffs.

“I love tariffs. Most beautiful word, but I’m not allowed to say that anymore. Tariff is my favourite word. I love the word tariff. We’re becoming rich as hell. We have a big case in front of the Supreme Court, but I can’t imagine it because this is what other nations have done to us,” Trump said while delivering a speech to top US commanders at the at the Marine Corps Base in Quantico.

Trump was speaking ahead of a Supreme Court hearing on tariffs. Under law, only US Congress has the power to impose tariffs. Trump has claimed emergency powers allow him to do so.

“We’ve taken in trillions of dollars. We’re rich again. When we finish this out, there’ll never be any wealth like what we have. Other countries were taking advantage of us for years and years… Now we’re treating them fairly. But the money coming in is something we’ve never seen. The other day, they had $31 billion (Rs 2.75 lakh crore) that they found… $31 billion (Rs 2.75 lakh crore). That’s enough to buy a lot of battleships,” he added.

What happened?

Trump in April had announced ‘reciprocal’ tariffs on dozens of US trading partners including China, India, the European Union, Vietnam and Taiwan. The tariffs, announced from the Rose Garden in the White House came on what Trump dubbed ‘Liberation Day’.

Trump had imposed a 30 per cent tariff on China, a 25 per cent tariff on India, a 20 per cent tariff on the European Union, a 46 per cent tariff on Vietnam and a 32 per cent tariff on Taiwan. The development left leaders around the world, many of them allies of America, scratching their heads. It also sent world markets into a tizzy.

Trump essentially wanted to encourage companies to shift their manufacturing plants to the United States , thereby increasing investment in America. He also wanted to stop jobs from being shipped overseas. Many in the White House also considered these tariffs as a way to bring allies to the negotiating table for trade deals.

The United States has since negotiated trade deals with South Korea, the European Union, the United Kingdom, Japan, the Philippines, Vietnam and Indonesia.

Washington is still negotiating a trade deal with China. He has also imposed an additional 25 per cent tariff on India for buying Russian oil – over which New Delhi has hit back at Washington. However, there are recent reports that the trade deal talks are back on track. Most of the tariffs went into effect on August 7.

In the meantime, Trump has repeatedly bragged about how much money his tariffs are bringing in. “America is going to be very rich again, very soon,” Trump said in April. “We’re making a fortune with tariffs – $2 billion (Rs 1.77 lakh crore) a day.”

“Money is pouring in at a level we have never seen before,” Trump claimed. However, Trump has never attributed as to how or where he got those figures.

Are tariffs really making America ‘rich as hell’?

It is true that the US government is taking in money – just nowhere as much as Trump claims.

Let’s examine the facts and figures.

Official US data show tariffs have generated between $165 and $172 billion (Rs 14.64–15.25 lakh crore) from January 2025 to August 2025. The latest “Customs and Certain Excise Taxes” data puts that figure at $183 billion ( Rs 16.23 lakh crore) for 2025. The Bipartisan Policy Center (BPC), which includes excise tax revenue, puts that figure at $158.8 billion ( Rs 14.09 lakh crore).

Regardless of the source, these figures are a massive jump from 2024 and 2022 when the US took in $74 billion (Rs 6.56 lakh crore) and $98 billion (Rs 8.69 lakh crore) respectively.

In August, the US took in $30 billion (Rs 2.66 lakh crore) in tariffs, a record for 2025 and a 136 per cent increase year over year. The US also took in $28 billion (Rs 2.48 lakh crore) in July compared to just $7 billion (Rs 0.62 lakh crore) during the same month last year, $26.6 billion (Rs 2.36 lakh crore) in June compared to $6.3 billion (Rs 0.56 lakh crore) in June 2024 and $23 billion (Rs 2.04 lakh crore) in May, a nearly 300 per cent increase from May 2024.

While the tariffs are continuing to add billions to the coffer every month, t hey still aren’t anywhere near the ‘trillions of dollars’ Trump recently claimed. They don’t even come close to the $2 billion (Rs 1.77 lakh crore) per day figure he previously boasted about.

Though Trump and others in his administration have claimed tariffs could go towards paying down the federal debt and even potentially replacing the income tax. But the US national debt is at $37.43 trillion (Rs 3,319.23 lakh crore). The United States federal government took in $2.5 trillion (Rs 221.75 lakh crore) from income tax alone in 2024.

Basic mathematics shows such claims don’t hold up.

The bigger problem

The bigger question is from where the money is coming. Trump’s problem is that his understanding of tariffs – with which he has developed an obsession – is skewed. Trump has accused other countries of using tariffs to ‘rip America off’. He has also focused on the trade deficit between countries and sees tariffs as a way of remedying them.

Unfortunately, tariffs aren’t paid by other countries to the United States – a fact that the US president and many of his supporters still don’t comprehend. In fact, it is private companies that pay tariffs to import goods to the United States.

Experts also warn that the impacts of Trump’s tariffs are slowly kicking in. Inflation, which the US Federal Reserve had under control near its two per cent target, has been steadily creeping upwards.

Companies in April had responded to Trump’s initial tariffs by placing bulk orders for goods. This had allowed them not to immediately spike prices and alarm consumers. However, now, the prices of goods such as electronics, appliances, sporting equipment and toys are increasing.

Companies are also reluctant to hire with the latest jobs numbers in the toilet – which he attempted to remedy by claiming the numbers were rigged. He also fired the person in the federal government responsible for putting out the numbers. While Trump has claimed that energy prices, petrol prices and grocery prices are trending downwards in his United Nations General Assembly speech, the data show the exact opposite is happening.

In short, the US isn’t growing ‘rich as hell’ as a result of Trump’s tariffs.

With inputs from agencies