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In April, the United States set a record for the amount of money collected in customs duties, with over 16 billion dollars collected. You can thank Trump's new liberation day tariffs for all this new external revenue.
Many importers in April rushed to bring as much of their product into the U.S. as they could in order to get ahead of the tariffs, leading to this record-setting spike in revenue.
Heritage Foundation economist EJ Antoni explained that, "People knew that the tariffs where going to be put into place relatively quickly, so as soon as the announcement came, everybody rushed to import product."
Unfortunately, that also means that you shouldn't expect to see back-to-back record-setting months. Because fewer imports will be required over the next few months, expect a drop off. Antoni says, "They're gonna be importing much much less for the middle of this year. That means that despite having a much higher tax rate, you're gonna have a smaller tax base."
He said while the amount of tariff revenue collected in the short term will drop off after this spike, Antoni pointed out that once trade normalizes with higher tariff rates like Trump's baseline 10% tariff still in place, revenue should begin to rise again.
Antoni also said it's important for the administration to be consistent on tariffs and sign trade deals as soon as possible to maximize the benefits to the American economy.