Trump: Tariffs, ‘Paid for by Foreign Countries,’ Will Eventually Replace Income Tax

President Donald Trump announced during the State of the Union (SOTU) address on Tuesday that he believes tariffs, “paid for by foreign countries,” will eventually “replace the modern-day system of income tax.”

“Countries that were ripping us off for decades are now paying us hundreds of billions of dollars,” President Trump declared during Tuesday’s SOTU address. “They were ripping us off so badly, you all know that, everybody knows it, Democrats know it, they just don’t want to say it.”

“And yet these countries are now happy, and so are we,” the president continued. “We made deals, the deals are all done, and they’re happy. They’re not making money like they used to, but we’re making a lot of money.”

Trump went on to note the U.S. Supreme Court’s recent “very unfortunate ruling,” which struck down his emergency tariffs to invoke a separate trade authority, imposing an import surcharge on most goods that takes effect February 24.

“But the good news is that almost all countries and corporations want to keep the deal that they already made, knowing that the legal power that I, as President, have to make a new deal — could be far worse for them,” the president said.

“Therefore, they will continue to work along the same successful [path] that we have negotiated before the Supreme Court’s unfortunate involvement,” Trump added, before noting, “Many of the wars I settled was because of the threat of tariffs. I wouldn’t have been able to settle them without.”