Donald Trump’s legislative legacy will be as a tax-cutter. He signed the Tax Cuts and Jobs Act in 2017 and signed the One Big Beautiful Bill Act this year that made most of the TCJA’s provisions permanent.

But apparently he wants Americans to think that the “Golden Age” will come because of tax increases:

“$150 billion in tariff revenue” = $150 billion in tax hikes. The White House account links to a Fox Business story that concludes as follows:

Treasury Secretary Scott Bessent has previously said the administration predicts tariffs may generate more than $300 billion in revenue for the federal government. As the Trump administration touts rising tariff revenue, it’s U.S. businesses that pay those higher import taxes to the federal government.

However, the economic burden could ultimately be passed on to American consumers through higher prices.

Correct. Why is this a win?

Trump thinks it’s a win because he believes in mercantilism, whether he realizes it or not. The debunked school of economic thought that Adam Smith argued against in Wealth of Nations supports protectionism and central planning, and it does so in the name of increasing wealth for the government. It holds that countries become wealthy when their sovereigns amass money. Smith argued, conclusively, that that is a poor measure of national wealth and that the better measure is the ability of a country’s citizens to consume, i.e., the everyday person’s standard of living.

It does not in any way surprise opponents of tariffs that the government raises money from imposing them. They are taxes, and taxes go to the government. The American people, who just got the certainty of the extended 2017 tax cuts earlier this month, don’t need a tax increase from the president.

Even weirder coming from the tax-cutting president is that the White House appears to be exaggerating how large the tariff tax hike was. According to the Monthly Treasury Statement from June, the federal government has collected $108 billion in customs duties (tariffs) so far this fiscal year. The Fox Business story says that Treasury estimates $28 billion in collections this month. That comes out to only $136 billion in tariff collections since October 1 when the fiscal year began, not in the past six months.

Exaggerating the extent to which you raised taxes to proclaim the “Golden Age” is a strange message from a Republican White House.