Trump gives new timeline for $2,000 tariff rebate checks

WASHINGTON — President Donald Trump has a new timeline for his proposed $2,000 tariff dividend payments. 

In a wide-ranging interview this week with The New York Times, the president was asked for when Americans can expect to see the tariff dividend he repeatedly proposed last year. 

“The tariff money is so substantial that’s coming in that I’ll be able to do $2,000 sometime…I would say toward the end of the year,” he told Katie Rogers, the NYT’s White House Correspondent. 

Previously, Trump said the $2,000 checks would come by mid-2026. 

The president also told the Times that he didn’t need congressional approval to make these payments, despite experts disagreeing. 

Last month, the president sent out “Warrior Dividend” checks to military service members that he claimed was funded by tariff revenue.  However, the $1,776 payments to troops came from a congressionally-approved housing supplement — money they were already set to receive — that was a part of tax cut extensions and expansions bill signed into law in July. 

The president has repeatedly teased the idea of sending one-time $2,000 rebate checks to many Americans from tariff revenue. 

While Trump has said these proposed checks would arrive in 2026, several administration officials have cautioned that the president’s proposal for tariff checks would require congressional approval.

At this point, it seems to be a long shot that congress would OK the plan. 

Several Republican senators have shot down the tariff rebate check plan publicly, calling the proposal everything from “a bad idea” to “insane.” Most conservatives instead want to use any tariff revenue to pay down the massive national debt. 

The latest comments come as the Supreme Court is soon expected to issue a ruling on the legality of Trump’s tariffs. 

In a November hearing, the justices sounded skeptical about the Trump administration’s assertion of sweeping power to declare national emergencies to justify the tariffs. Trump has bypassed Congress, which has constitutional authority to levy taxes, including tariffs. If the court strikes down the tariffs, the Trump administration may have to refund the tariffs to importers, making dividend checks to American families no longer even a remote possibility. 

Several officials, including Trump, have said the checks would be for “working families” and for “moderate” and “middle” income families. Treasury Secretary Scott Bessent has said the checks would have income limits. 

Trump has boasted that “trillions of dollars” are coming into the U.S. from tariffs, but budget experts say the math doesn’t quite add up.

This isn’t the first time Trump has pushed the idea of a payout for Americans due to his policies. In February, the Republican president said he liked the idea of giving some of the savings from Elon Musk’s Department of Government Efficiency, or DOGE, back to Americans as a dividend. 

The plan never went anywhere, and months later, Musk left the DOGE office.