Trump's tariffs could pay for his tax cuts -- but it likely wouldn't be much of a bargain

WASHINGTON (AP) —

The tax cuts in President Donald Trump’s One Big Beautiful Bill Act would likely gouge a hole in the federal budget.

The president has a patch handy, though: his sweeping import taxes — tariffs.

The Congressional Budget Office, the government’s nonpartisan arbiter of tax and spending matters, says the One Big Beautiful Bill, passed by the House last month and now under consideration in the Senate , would increase federal budget deficits by $2.4 trillion over the next decade. That is because its tax cuts would drain the government’s coffers faster than its spending cuts would save money.

By bringing in revenue for the Treasury, on the other hand, the tariffs that Trump announced through May 13 — including his so-called reciprocal levies of up to 50% on countries