Trump claims tariffs are paid for by foreign countries and take "a great financial burden off the people that I love"
"As time goes by, I believe that tariffs, paid for by foreign countries, will, like in the past, substantially replace the modern-day system of income tax, taking a great financial burden off the people that I love."
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Mr. Trump and the White House maintain that it's foreign companies and exporters who pay for tariffs. He wrote in a January Wall Street Journal op-ed that data shows tariffs have "fallen overwhelmingly on foreign producers and middlemen."
The Federal Reserve Bank of New York published an analysis in February that found over 90% of Mr. Trump's 2025 tariffs were passed onto U.S. consumers and businesses in the form of higher costs. It found that from January through August of last year, U.S. importers bore 94% of tariff costs. That decreased slightly in November, as exporters began to take up more of the burden, but U.S. importers still remained on the hook for 86% of the tariffs, according to their analysis.