Donald Trump has made some big promises about his tariff regime. It will help pay down the national debt, he has said, and the scheme is also so wildly successful that it will pay dividends—literally—to the American people. But the math doesn’t quite add up. In his cabinet meeting Tuesday, President Trump told his team and the media: “We’re going to be giving back refunds out of the tariffs because we’ve taken in literally trillions of dollars, and we’re going to be giving a nice dividend to the people, in addition to reducing debt. As you know, I inherited a lot of debt, but it’s peanuts compared to the kind of numbers we’re talking about.”

“So we’re going to be making a dividend to the people and additionally we’re going to be able to reduce debt and as time goes by over the next two, t

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