Trump's tariff strategy could pay for his tax bill, but only if they stick, experts warn
The White House and congressional Republicans have said that President Donald Trump's sweeping tariffs would help pay for his mammoth tax bill, but tax experts say it depends on whether the president stays consistent.
Senate Republicans are in the midst of hashing out their plan to tweak and reshape the president's "big, beautiful bill," which includes Trump's desire to extend and make permanent his first-term tax policies.
However, the tax portion of the bill alone is expected to cost roughly $4 trillion. And when factoring in spending cuts and other revenue and economic drivers, the nonpartisan Congressional Budget Office found in a report earlier this week that, in all, the colossal legislative package would add $2.4 trillion to the deficit over the next decade.
The CBO, which has come under recent scrutiny from congressional Republicans unhappy with the scoring of the president's "big, beautiful bill," also found that Trump's tariffs would reduce the deficit by $2.8 trillion over the same period.
Joe Rosenberg, a senior fellow at the left-leaning Urban-Brookings Tax Policy Center, told Fox News Digital that the reconciliation package's potential impact on the debt is more concerning now than in 2017, due to higher debt levels and rising interest rates.
When Republicans were putting together the president's original tax package, the national debt was roughly $20 trillion. Eight years later, that number has ballooned to over $36 trillion and counting.
Rosenberg contended that if the CBO's report were taken as is, then Trump's tariffs would make the bill deficit neutral and then some. But the report assumed that the eye-popping sums that Trump's tariffs could generate were based on whether they were permanent.
"I think what we've seen is that the tariff policy, again, seems to change day by day, hour by hour, minute by minute," he said. "And the administration is a little bit inconsistent about whether they view tariffs as purely a revenue source versus essentially a negotiating tool."
The report also found that in exchange for trillions in deficit reduction, household wealth would drop, and the economy would shrink each year over the next decade.
Tad Dehaven, a policy analyst at the Cato Institute, argued that this factor—along with Trump's tariffs being tied up in court over constitutional challenges and their shifting application—makes any projected benefits "extraordinarily unlikely."
"Let's pretend that these tariffs are going to remain in place for 10 years at some level delineated today. That's a major tax increase, so whatever alleged benefit you're receiving from the tax cut in the reconciliation package, it's being offset by a tax increase," he said. "And a rather economically inefficient one."
Mike Palicz, director of tax policy at the conservative Americans for Tax Reform, scoffed at the CBO's recent scoring, and lamented the agency as "a bunch of bean counters" that often miss the mark on key pieces of legislation, like the president's original Tax Cuts and Jobs Act.
He argued that none of the outside noise should matter, telling Fox News Digital that "you cannot go out and explain to a normal person or business that their taxes aren't increasing next year if the Trump tax cuts are allowed to expire."
"That's what the whole point of this exercise is, preventing the expiration of tax cuts, preventing the largest tax increase in American history," he said. "And no conservative, no Republican, should think that you address the deficit by raising taxes."
Hashtags
Try Our AI Features
Explore what Daily8 AI can do for you:
Comments
No comments yet...
Related Articles
Forbes
28 minutes ago
- Forbes
4 ChatGPT Prompts Emerging Leaders Should Be Using In 2025
Using ChatGPT to help develop as an effective leader Whether you're a teen entrepreneur building your first business team or an educator stepping into department leadership, the desire to lead effectively is often stronger than the knowledge of how to do it well. The challenge? Most leadership development happens through expensive coaching, lengthy programs, or trial-and-error experiences that can be costly and time-consuming. Artificial intelligence offers a practical solution. When used strategically, ChatGPT becomes more than a chatbot—it transforms into a personal development coach that helps clarify thinking and strengthen decision-making skills. These four ChatGPT prompts help emerging leaders build self-awareness, navigate real-world challenges, and lead with greater confidence. Self-awareness distinguishes effective leaders from those who are not, yet most people lack training in productive self-reflection. This prompt positions ChatGPT as an executive coach, generating questions that dig beneath surface-level concerns. Rather than vague journaling, this approach creates structured reflection. The AI identifies patterns, such as perfectionism, fear of visibility, or unclear priorities, that may be limiting progress. How to maximize results: After answering the five questions, follow up with: "Can you summarize the mindset I seem to be operating from? What belief is driving my hesitation?" This moves the conversation from symptoms to root causes. A teen entrepreneur might discover they're avoiding reaching out to potential customers not because they lack time, but because they fear adults won't take them seriously. A teacher might realize they're hesitating to implement new classroom management strategies not because of workload, but because they're worried about appearing inexperienced to their colleagues. This awareness alone can shift behavior and open new opportunities. New leaders typically either over-function by attempting to control every detail or under-function by failing to establish clear expectations. This prompt provides a preview of common challenges and practical prevention strategies. Anticipating leadership challenges enables proactive decision-making rather than reactive crisis management. Understanding potential pitfalls helps new leaders develop strategies before problems emerge. Make it specific: Add context for better results. For example: "I'm a teen founder leading my first team of three classmates on our social media marketing business. What traps should I watch out for when my team members are also my friends?" Or: "I'm a first-year teacher managing parent volunteers for our school fundraiser. How do I maintain authority while staying collaborative?" Advanced application: Request scenarios: "Give me an example of what micromanaging versus clear leadership looks like in a group chat with teen team members." This transforms abstract concepts into concrete behaviors you can recognize and adjust. Many first-time teen leaders discover that setting clear expectations with friends-turned-teammates strengthens their business relationships. Teachers often find that being direct about volunteer responsibilities yields better outcomes than relying on people to figure things out on their own. Effective leaders adjust their approach to suit the situation. This prompt helps explore different leadership styles and consider how each might affect team dynamics and project outcomes. When a teen entrepreneur faces team members who aren't meeting deadlines for their custom sticker business, or when a teacher deals with students who seem disengaged during group projects, ChatGPT might suggest: Directive approach: Implement stricter deadlines with clear consequences. A teen might create formal check-in schedules with team members, while a teacher might establish daily progress reports for project groups. Coaching approach: Meet individually with team members to identify obstacles and realign on goals. This builds relationships and addresses root issues, but requires a more significant time investment. Visionary approach: Reconnect the team to the larger purpose behind their work. A teen entrepreneur might remind their team about the impact their business will have on their college applications, while a teacher might help students see how their project connects to real-world applications. Follow-up question: "Which of these approaches aligns most with my leadership style, and how can I combine elements of all three without confusing the team?" This framework helps young leaders move beyond their default style to consider what the specific situation requires. Teen entrepreneurs often discover they've been trying to be everyone's friend instead of a clear leader, while new teachers realize they've been defaulting to the coaching approach when some situations require more direct guidance. This prompt shifts perspective from uncertainty to clarity by using your existing leadership knowledge. Instead of asking, "What should I do?" it asks, "What would the best version of me already know to do?" Advanced variation: "Act like my future self three years from now—someone who has grown as a leader. What advice would they give me about this situation?" This temporal shift helps make decisions based on long-term principles rather than short-term fears. For deeper insight: Ask ChatGPT to explain why that version of you would act that way. This reveals the values and principles you're developing as a leader. A teen entrepreneur might use this prompt when deciding whether to fire a team member who is consistently late to virtual meetings, while a teacher might apply it when considering how to address a parent who is undermining classroom policies. The "future self" approach often reveals that effective leadership requires having difficult conversations rather than avoiding them. These ChatGPT prompts are most effective when used consistently rather than sporadically. Schedule weekly 15-minute sessions to work through one prompt, focusing on current leadership challenges. Save responses that provide valuable insights and track patterns over time. The goal isn't to replace experience or mentorship but to accelerate learning through structured reflection. Leadership develops through practice, feedback, and iteration—ChatGPT creates more opportunities for productive self-examination. While AI can provide valuable frameworks and perspectives, real leadership development happens through application. Use these prompts to clarify thinking, then test insights through actual leadership situations. Document what works and what doesn't. Share learnings with mentors or peer groups. The combination of AI-powered reflection and real-world practice creates a powerful development cycle that enables emerging leaders to build capabilities more quickly than traditional methods alone. Leadership isn't about having all the answers—it's about asking better questions and acting on the insights. These ChatGPT prompts help accelerate that process, transforming everyday challenges into leadership development opportunities.
Yahoo
40 minutes ago
- Yahoo
The only ‘Made in America' smartphone maker has a message for Apple about manufacturing in the Trump tariff era
Todd Weaver has an important message for Apple as it faces growing demands by President Donald Trump to reshore some of its smartphone production: Don't listen to the conventional wisdom. Experts have long said that manufacturing iPhones in the U.S., rather than Asia, as Apple does, would be logistically impossible and ridiculously expensive. But Weaver argues companies can indeed do it successfully, and at a similar or only slightly higher cost—if given several years to navigate the inevitable complications. Weaver should know: His startup, Purism, is among the few, if not the only business, that assembles smartphones in the U.S. In fact, the U.S. pedigree is the main selling point of his company's Made in America device, the Liberty Phone. 'It is challenging to do this in the U.S.,' Weaver acknowledges. 'It's probably the reason I'm the only one.' And yet, he says his company has managed to make it work and has been profitable for the last two years—a real world example of what's possible on a hot-button topic in which political talking points and vested interests often dominate the debate. President Donald Trump recently put U.S. smartphone production in the spotlight as part of his global trade war. On May 23, he used social network Truth Social to publicly attack Apple for importing iPhones into the U.S., rather than making them domestically, and then threatened the company with a 25% tariff if it continued to do so. Whether any of the import taxes will become permanent is unclear given Trump's whiplash decision-making and court challenges by third parties. Still, Apple has long assembled its iPhones overseas, mainly in China, and has resisted relocating any of that production to the U.S. In April, when Trump announced his tariffs, Apple went so far as to shift the sourcing of most U.S.-bound iPhones to India, which faced lower import taxes. U.S. assembly was never publicly mentioned as a possibility. In the past, Apple CEO Cook explained the reluctance by saying the abundance of skilled labor and top-notch suppliers overseas would be difficult to reproduce at home. Weaver's company, of course, is no Apple, which has sold more than 2 billion iPhones globally since introducing the first models in 2007. The devices unleashed a new era in the tech industry in which mobile devices became the prime focus. Purism, in contrast, has sold just tens of thousands of phones since debuting its first model in 2018, according to Weaver. And the company is barely-known outside the world of tech nerds. Its Liberty Phone, manufactured near San Diego, comes with U.S.-made electronics installed on a metal chassis from China. It retails for $1,999. Another phone, the Librem 5, is mostly the same design, except it's made in China with Chinese parts, and costs $799. The company also produces tablet computers, laptops, and servers. Purism pitches its Made in America device as more secure and privacy friendly than those from major manufactures like Apple. Because all the critical parts and assembly are domestic, it's easy to verify that they haven't been tampered with by a foreign adversary that wants to snoop or stuff them with explosives. The phones also run on a Linux-based open source operating system. Anyone with technical know-how who is worried about the security can review the code—unlike with more popular phones, which come with operating systems that can't be easily inspected. Additionally, Purism's phones come with three kill switches that lets users physically disconnect their device from cell service, Wi-Fi and Bluetooth, along with its microphone and camera. When turned on, the switches sever the electrical circuit to the features they control and make it impossible for them to be accessed by hackers, Weaver said. Toggling on Airplane Mode, as users often do on more mainstream phones, is less secure, he said, because it's a purely software feature that doesn't cut power to the device's chips. Customers who are especially security conscious can pay extra to have their devices shipped with 'tamper evident tape' on the packaging, among other options, to flag any monkey business during transit. Purism's biggest customers are government agencies, many of which require high security, and individual consumers. The company's clients, Weaver said, include the FBI and the House Select Committee on Intelligence. Weaver said the cost of manufacturing the Purism's two phones is largely the same, despite one being made overseas and the other domestically. The phone that's made in China costs around $600 for parts, manufacturing, and assembly while the U.S.-made one comes in at $650. 'Producing goods in China vs. the U.S. is the same plus or minus 10%,' said Weaver, based mostly on automation. The difference between what Purism charges customers for its two phones is partly due to the higher profit margin the company collects for its U.S.-made device. People who want stronger security are often willing to pay extra for it, Weaver said. It also covers the extra overhead from some customers wanting to verify that Purism's supply chain is secure and the small additional cost of U.S. manufacturing. Purism's assembly line is in Carlsbad, Calif., where up to a dozen workers put together devices. The area is home to a pool of skilled labor thanks to the local defense industry and manufacturing for other mobile carriers. That relatively modest assembly line is a major contrast to the factories that make iPhones, operated by contract manufacturers, mostly in China. Those facilities can be the size of several football fields and employ over 100,000 people who work around-the-clock shifts. Weaver said the U.S. is at a huge disadvantage to China when it comes to skilled workers, who make up a significant part of the workforce in smartphone factories. The only way to reverse the shortage and lay the groundwork for companies to reshore their production is to encourage more people to learn skills that are useful in the manufacturing process, he said. 'If you go over to China you can find buildings and buildings of thousands of electronics engineers. If you look here, you can find maybe five total,' Weaver said. Apple, for example, would risk a catastrophe if it suddenly, in 2026, needed to ramp up staffing in the U.S. to produce millions of iPhones, he said. Training enough people for such a massive undertaking would take years. Weaver said Purism, founded in 2014, took several years to develop its domestic supply chain. The company's small size means it only needs limited quantities of components, which makes it impossible to achieve the economies of scale that come from producing huge numbers of devices. Manufacturing in the U.S. also comes with higher labor costs than in China. But with the help of automation, those extra costs can be kept to a minimum by reserving human labor for tasks performed after production is complete, such as soldering, assembly, repairs, and testing. Apple, on the other hand, would need vast amounts of components to keep its assembly line humming. While the company would likely be able to cut deals with domestic suppliers for most iPhone parts, some, such as high-quality cameras, may be impossible to quickly source in the U.S. and it would therefore have to import them, Weaver said. One analyst has said iPhones could end up costing $3,500 if made in the U.S., to account for the extra costs and hassles. Weaver agrees that it would cost Apple substantially more to produce iPhones in the U.S., if it had to move production quickly. But given enough time, Apple could substantially reduce the cost after developing a new supply chain, finding enough workers, and by relying on extensive automation. For Apple, opening a domestic manufacturing plant would therefore need to be a years' long process, Weaver said. That's why he criticized Trump's tariffs for taking effect almost immediately. Yes, many of those tariffs have since been delayed. But the takeaway for businesses is that they can't plan ahead. And yet, that's exactly what's required for something as complex as shifting manufacturing to the U.S. Trump's tariffs would be far more effective if phased in over many years, Weaver said. In that scenario, companies would have a clear and increasing incentive to reshore production—without being punished right off the bat. Weaver argues his U.S. manufacturing effort is already paying off and that it will gain momentum over time. He hopes the recent scandal involving U.S. officials using the chat app Signal to discuss a military strike against Yemen, and then accidentally inviting a journalist to join them, will help lift sales by encouraging the federal government to focus more on security. Weaver wouldn't get into the specifics of Purism's financials other than to say it has millions in annual revenue and turned profitable in 2023. The Liberty Phone is its biggest seller. Wayne Lam, an analyst with market research firm TechInsights, gave a mixed take on Purism's prospect. In an email, he said: 'They can be a successful niche player, but the odds of success are lower thanks to the bigger brands. They won't be able to compete in the consumer market but government/enterprise/military are all niche markets they can address.' To fund the expansion of his business, Weaver is trying to raise additional investment after taking in $16 million in funding over the years. Some of that money would go to fixing a shortcoming with his phones. Because they don't use Apple's iOS or Google's Android operating systems, they are incompatible with many of the most popular mobile apps like Uber. To get such apps work on its devices, Purism must make technical tweaks for each one. Purism can at least claim one small advantage over the giant companies that dominate the smartphone industry. If Trump's tariffs become permanent, it won't feel much impact from its U.S.-made phone, while the big players and their foreign-made devices could be hammered. This story was originally featured on Error in retrieving data Sign in to access your portfolio Error in retrieving data Error in retrieving data Error in retrieving data Error in retrieving data
43 minutes ago
How major US stock indexes fared Friday, 6/6/2025
Stocks rose on Wall Street following a better-than-expected report on the U.S. job market. The S&P 500 climbed 1% Friday, marking its second weekly gain in a row. The Dow Jones Industrial Average added 1%, and the Nasdaq composite rose 1.2%. U.S. employers slowed their hiring last month, but still added a solid 139,000 jobs amid uncertainty over President Donald Trump's trade wars. Lululemon Athletica sank after lowering its profit forecast for the full year. On Friday: The S&P 500 rose 61.06 points, or 1%, to 6,000.36. The Dow Jones Industrial Average rose 443.13 points, or 1%, to 42,762.87. The Nasdaq composite rose 231.50 points, or 1.2%, to 19,529.95. The Russell 2000 index of smaller companies rose 34.89 points, or 1.7%, to 2,132.25. For the week: The S&P 500 is up 88.67 points, or 1.5%. The Dow is up 492.80 points, or 1.2%. The Nasdaq is up 416.19 points, or 2.2%. The Russell 2000 is up 65.96 points, or 3.2%. For the year: The S&P 500 is up 118.73 points, or 2%. The Dow is up 218.65 points, or 0.5%. The Nasdaq is up 219.16 points, or 1.1%. The Russell 2000 is down 97.91 points, or 4.4%.
