Scott Bessent Claims U.S. Is Expected To Collect 'Well Over $300 Billion' From Tariffs By Year End

During a cabinet meeting Tuesday, Treasury Secretary Scott Bessent spoke about tariffs.

Transcript

00:00The tariffs, as you know, are starting to come in at record levels.

00:04Tremendous amounts of money are coming in to our country.

00:07We never did that before. We're not used to it.

00:09We only have tariffs going out.

00:11We only adhere to the rules of other nations who charge us tremendous tariffs

00:16because we were led by stupid people, poor people without any business sense.

00:21And I'd like to ask Scott, you could maybe talk a little bit about how well we're doing

00:26with regard to the money coming in.

00:28And the big money will start coming in on August 1st.

00:33I think it was made clear today by the letters that were sent out yesterday and today.

00:38Go ahead, please.

00:39Yes, sir. We will have taken in about $100 billion in tariff income thus far this year.

00:46And that's with the tariff, the major tariff not having started until the second quarter.

00:51So we could expect that that could be well over $300 billion by the end of the year.

00:56We don't agree with CBO scoring.

00:58But for those who do, the CBO scored tariff income over the next 10 years at $2.8 trillion,

01:05which we think is probably low.

01:08And, you know, sir, under your leadership, we're witnessing...

01:12They gave us no credit during this last little, the great, big, beautiful bill.

01:17All right.

01:18Let's go.