From the beginning, I’ve supported Trump’s tariffs. Unlike protectionaist tariffs, Trump’s tariffs were not intended to confer benefits on a specific favored industry, no matter the consequences for American consumers. Instead, Trump used his tariffs as a negotiating tool against nations abusing America’s free market system. They could either lower their tariffs or pay our tariffs. Meanwhile, companies in those nations also had the choice of coming to America.
Trump’s tariffs definitely got results. At the country level, the Office of the United States Trade Representative now lists trade deals or frameworks with roughly 20 trading partners or partner groups, all of which are favorable to U.S. manufacturers. The agreements range from decent to exceptionally good. For example, Thailand eliminated tariffs on 99% of American goods, and Vietnam removed tariffs on most American goods. (Canada, of course, had a nervous breakdown and has gone all kinds of crazy.)
Things worked out well at the corporate level, too. At least a couple of dozen major companies have announced new or expanded U.S. manufacturing investments during the tariff push.
As of August 31, 2026, the U.S. had collected about $292.5 billion in tariffs. When balanced against $125.2 billion in tariff refunds, the net revenue (so far) is $167.3 billion. This contrasts with 2024, when customs-duty revenue was only $76.4 billion.
What’s also nice is that the doom-and-gloom predictions haven’t panned out. The left-leaning Brookings think tank conceded in May that “for the most part, the tariff impacts have been muted in the U.S.” By the end of July, the still-left-leaning (although less so than before) WaPo went so far as to publish a guest editorial asserting that “Trump’s tariffs aren’t crushing global trade,” and had not produced a recession. Indeed, U.S. imports rose.
By August, Walmart was promising to lower prices by using some of the nearly $3 billion in tariff refunds it received after the Supreme Court invalidated some of Trump’s tariffs. Over the preceding quarter, Walmart had more than 11,000 price rollbacks. Shareholders benefited, too, because the refunds significantly boosted Walmart’s earnings.
Now there’s more good news for consumers, this time for Costco shoppers. Costco received $184 million in tariff refunds and said it was using most of that money to lower prices for its members.
The refunds themselves weren’t part of Trump’s original plan. But the larger picture looks remarkably like what he predicted when he embarked on his tariff war: foreign countries lowered trade barriers, manufacturers increased their American investments, the tariffs produced substantial federal revenue, and the recession and runaway inflation predicted by many economic “experts” never materialized. On those measures, Trump’s critics badly underestimated both the strategy and the economy’s ability to absorb it.
