The White House announced Monday that President Donald Trump’s ongoing tariff campaign is generating record-breaking revenue, pushing back against mainstream media claims that the policy will soon lead to widespread price increases for consumers.
Since launching the initial round of tariffs on April 2—dubbed “Liberation Day” by the administration—Trump has called on Americans to be patient as higher duties pressure foreign governments to return to the negotiating table, in some cases for the first time in decades. He has pointed to recent trade agreements with nations such as Vietnam, Cambodia, Japan, and the United Kingdom, where tariffs on American goods were reduced or eliminated in exchange for lighter U.S. rates on their exports.
For countries that haven’t reached such deals, however, the imposed tariffs are yielding record international revenue for the U.S., according to a chart posted by Trump’s rapid response team on X.
Tariff revenues for July reached $29.6 billion—the highest monthly total since the COVID-19 pandemic, and potentially even earlier. In fact, the previous four months also saw significant spikes in international payments to the U.S. government, as foreign exporters paid steep surcharges to continue selling goods to American consumers.
Just two months after “Liberation Day,” monthly revenue from international tariffs topped $20 billion for the first time, more than double the typical $10 billion or less recorded consistently under the Biden administration.
However, the subdued response from the White House press corps last week highlights the growing challenges Trump faces in maintaining consumer and business confidence six months into his second term. During a Friday press conference, the president pushed back at a reporter who questioned why, if tariffs are so profitable, he hadn’t imposed them during his first term.
“In my first term, I was fighting lunatics like you who were trying to do things incorrectly and inappropriately to a president that was duly elected,” Trump responded to his critic while pointing to “hundreds of billions of dollars” taken in from tariffs on China between 2017 and 2021.
“If you look at my first term, we took in hundreds of billions of dollars in tariffs, but you people didn’t cover it very well,” Trump added.