MORNING GLORY: President Trump and the United States' massive tariff haul in his first six months back

Fox News

2 days ago

In June, the United States collected $27 billion dollars in tariff revenue on goods imported into the country. That number is expected to increase this month —we will know for sure in a few days. Hold on to those numbers for a bit while considering the context in which they appear.
President Donald Trump ran and won in November, 2024 on a straightforward platform: Close the southern border. Prioritize the deportation of illegal migrants that are criminals or national security threats. Expand and extend the tax cuts that he initially pushed through in 2017 with the help of GOP majorities in the House and the Senate. Rollback the regulatory burden on American businesses. Rebuild the nation's defenses through much higher defense spending. Protect girls' and women's sports. End the era of "woke" by crushing "DEI" and "CRT."
President Trump also repeatedly stated from the time he came down the escalator in 2015 that Iran would not be permitted to obtain nuclear weapons. His support for Israel has been greater than any previous president.
Trump delivered on all of these promises already. In six months. It's a stunning and unprecedented record of achievements and of promises made and kept by a presidential candidate early in his term.
President Trump also ran on upending the international trading system through the imposition of tariffs on almost every country doing business with the U.S. Skeptics of this set of claims were everywhere.
The numbers:
June's tariff receipts in the U.S. set a monthly record of $27 billion.
July's number is expected to increase.
"[W]e could expect that that could be well over $300 billion by the end of the year," Treasury Secretary Scott Bessent declared earlier in July. (By contrast, total tariff revenue for the U.S. was $77 billion in calendar year 2024.) Bessent added that he estimates tariff revenue to the Treasury to top "2.8 trillion over 10 years," "which we think is probably low."
In January, the federal treasury collected approximately $8 billion in tariffs. That number had more than doubled by April to $16.3 billion. The president has since concluded new tariff and trade deals with the United Kingdom, Israel, Japan, Indonesia, Vietnam and —this week— the European Union. Negotiations with China are ongoing and more deals with more counties are expected as Trump's team on tariff negotiations ranges across the world accomplishing much, much more than most people thought could be accomplished this quickly.
A decade ago the U.S. collected $35 billion in tariffs annually. That's quite a contrast: $35 billion into the U.S. treasury from tariffs in 2015; $300 billion estimated in 2025.
President Trump made no secret about his intentions on trade. As with all the other campaign promises, he has delivered and indeed redone the vast global trading system. Thus far it has been all gain and very little pain as far as consumers and voters are concerned. Stock markets have soared in the same period with a big dip when the president announced the outlines of his ambitious trade agenda, a dip that was erased as new highs were recorded.
Now the question is: Will the skeptics of Trump's trade policies at least consider that they were wrong?
Like most commentators, trade and tariffs have rarely been a topic for me. I began work in government in President Reagan's administration and since then the GOP has been a "free trade" party. Almost every Reaganaut called themselves a devotee of "the Chicago school" of economics even if they were not economists. This meant, in a general way, low taxes and low-to-non-existent tariffs, and a belief in free trade around the globe via open oceans patrolled primarily by the United States Navy with help from its allies. This post-World War II international trading system was built on "GATT."
"GATT" stands for the General Agreement on Tariffs and Trade. It was a multilateral agreement established in 1947 to promote international trade by reducing or eliminating tariffs and other trade barriers between participating countries. There were eight "rounds" of GATT negotiations between 1947 and 1994, and they culminated in the creation of the World Trade Organization which came into being on January 1, 1995. In the 30 years since then, the "WTO" has set the rules and resolved the disputes among international trading partners.
At home, the Constitution vested the power over tariffs in the Congress, but much of that power has been delegated to the president and his officials via Section 232 of the Trade Expansion Act of 1962, Sections 201 and 301 of the Trade Act of 1974, and International Emergency Economic Powers Act (IEEPA) of 1977. Some critics of President Trump's big declarations and decisions on tariffs have questioned whether he has enough power under these delegations to so thoroughly transform the rules of international trade.
Suits have been filed and it will be a question of first impression for the Supreme Court if it gets there. We don't know what tariffs will eventually come before the Court if it even agrees to take up the matter. The U.S. Court of Appeals for the Federal Circuit in Washington, D.C., is scheduled to hear oral arguments today in V.O.S. Selections v. Trump, a case brought by five small business owners and 12 states who allege they have been harmed by President Trump's import taxes. V.O.S., the lead plaintiff in the case, is a New-York based wine importer. This is the lead case testing the president's powers under IEEPA.
All of the countries above that have concluded new agreements with Team Trump seem to accept President Trump's authority, but the case bears watching.
In the meantime, what are the free traders doing?
Many are issuing dire warnings about the future impacts on consumer prices and overall economic growth. Those fears have not been realized yet. In fact, GDP in Q2 of this year —the first full quarter of Trump's second term— grew an unexpectedly robust 3.0 percent, according to the advance estimate released by the U.S. Bureau of Economic Analysis.
Which should mean that critics ought to at least suspend judgment for awhile and perhaps reconsider their absolute commitments to "free trade," allowing for the possibility that while America willingly subsidized the world trading order for 80 years after World War II, it also possesses the power of the world's largest economy and market and can indeed set new rules.
My perspective has changed to one of cautious approval of what President Trump is trying while remaining open to urging reversal if it doesn't work. My evolving POV is that the U.S. has shouldered the cost of defending the freedom of the seas for eight decades and that this expensive burden will only grow in the years ahead. Tariff revenue can be seen as the trading nations of the world's contribution to the cost of the American military.
To be specific: The "One, Big, Beautiful Bill" included a much-needed surge of $158 billion in defense spending, much of which is going to the Navy and shipbuilding and repair capacity expansion. Bravo.
The $300 billion in tariff revenue expected this year will more than cover the increase in defense spending. Bravo again.
"Free trade" depends on freedom of navigation of the world's oceans and ultimately on America's military. Perhaps the skeptics of the president's tariff program should begin to at least consider that the era of "free riders" on the backs of the United States Navy (and broader military) is over and after 80 years of subsidizing the international trading order via our defense budget, it's time for trading nations to pay a share of that cost.
Hugh Hewitt is a Fox News contributor, and host of "The Hugh Hewitt Show," heard weekdays from 3 pm to 6 pm ET on the Salem Radio Network, and simulcast on Salem News Channel. Hugh drives America home on the East Coast and to lunch on the West Coast on over 400 affiliates nationwide, and on all the streaming platforms where SNC can be seen. He is a frequent guest on the Fox News Channel's news roundtable hosted by Bret Baier weekdays at 6pm ET. A son of Ohio and a graduate of Harvard College and the University of Michigan Law School, Hewitt has been a Professor of Law at Chapman University's Fowler School of Law since 1996 where he teaches Constitutional Law. Hewitt launched his eponymous radio show from Los Angeles in 1990. Hewitt has frequently appeared on every major national news television network, hosted television shows for PBS and MSNBC, written for every major American paper, has authored a dozen books and moderated a score of Republican candidate debates, most recently the November 2023 Republican presidential debate in Miami and four Republican presidential debates in the 2015-16 cycle. Hewitt focuses his radio show and his column on the Constitution, national security, American politics and the Cleveland Browns and Guardians. Hewitt has interviewed tens of thousands of guests from Democrats Hillary Clinton and John Kerry to Republican Presidents George W. Bush and Donald Trump over his 40 years in broadcast, and this column previews the lead story that will drive his radio/ TV show today.