Slingshot News: ‘It Would Be Different’: When Donald Trump Lied To His Supporters, Claiming He Would Get Rid Of The Income Tax At The White House
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Slingshot News: ‘Costs Haven’t Gone Up’: Trump Scrambles To Dodge Accountability, Spews Bald-Faced Lies About The Economy During Remarks In The Oval Office
The Dispatch: No, President Trump’s Tariffs Haven’t Generated $8 Trillion in Revenue
President Donald Trump speaks to reporters after signing executive orders in the Oval Office of the White House in Washington, D.C. on September 5, 2025. (Photo by MANDEL NGAN/AFP via Getty Images)
On Labor Day, a post on the White House’s official X account lauded President Donald Trump for having generated $8 trillion in revenue for the federal government and celebrated his “protectionist trade policies” for creating $8 trillion in U.S. investment. The text of the post highlights the trade policies, while an accompanying graphic touts the tariff revenue.
Trump also claimed Tuesday that the U.S. has “taken in almost $17 trillion in investment … most of it has come in because of tariffs.”
None of the claims is accurate.
A Bipartisan Policy Center analysis of the Treasury Department’s daily statements shows that the federal government has taken in $158.4 billion in tariff revenue since January 21, the day after Trump’s inauguration. On August 22, the Congressional Budget Office updated past projections and now estimates that Trump’s tariffs on China, Mexico, and several other countries will reduce deficits by $4 trillion—over the next decade. Each year, the United States on average takes in $3 trillion in imported goods, which makes the claim of $8 trillion in tariff revenue just in 2025 nearly impossible.
The White House maintains on its website a list of pledges of investment by various companies and countries, most recently updated on September 2. The list includes private sector projects such as a “$600 billion investment in U.S. manufacturing and workforce training” by Apple, $500 billion by Nvidia to update its U.S. infrastructure, and $200 billion by Micron to boost its U.S. production of memory chips. And it includes pledges by foreign nations such as the United Arab Emirates ($1.4 trillion), Qatar ($1.2 trillion), and Japan ($1 trillion) to invest in the U.S.
Add up those amounts, and you get roughly $7.5 trillion. But there are several reasons not to take these pledges at face value. As Dispatch contributor and Cato Institute vice president Scott Lincicome has written, companies like Apple, Amazon, or the chip manufacturer TMSC often seek to gain favor with a new administration by promising multibillion-dollar investments. These often involve either expansions of projects already in the works or vague pledges that lack concrete time frames.
“Oftentimes companies that are actually pledging new investment will say they’re going to do it based on market conditions,” Lincicome told The Dispatch. “Well, market conditions change, and suddenly what looks like a good investment isn’t a good investment, and it never happens. Or, the timeline is hilariously drawn out, and so it might take 10 years to hit that number.”
Trump’s first term, Lincicome continued, featured a collection of multibillion-dollar pledges from manufacturing giants—ultimately, with mixed successes. “Some of it certainly happened, but a lot of it didn’t, and some of it that did happen actually ended up collapsing. Look at [Magnitude] 7 Metals, this big aluminum company. [Trump trade adviser] Peter Navarro went out there and claimed this was the future of American aluminum, and it’s closed down two years later.”
When asked to clarify, the White House did not offer further explanation for their Labor Day post or for Trump’s remarks.
“President Trump is right: tariffs are bringing in historic revenue for the federal government, revenue that will amount to trillions of dollars in the coming years,” White House spokesperson Kush Desai told The Dispatch in an email. “Tariffs made America rich once before, and tariffs will Make America Wealthy Again.”
Simply bullshit! “The federal government has taken in $158.4 billion in tariff revenue since January 2”, not $8 trillion. Liars!
And they probably haven’t taken into account the changes in spending habits that occur when taxes and prices increase.
Associated Press: Trump signs order to designate nations that hold Americans as sponsors of wrongful detention
President Donald Trump signed an executive order on Friday that would let the U.S. designate nations as state sponsors of wrongful detention, using the threat of associated sanctions to deter Americans from being detained abroad or taken hostage.
…. two senior administration officials who spoke on condition of anonymity ahead of the order being signed cited China, Afghanistan, Iran and Russia as nations that could potentially face penalties under the new designation.
China, Afghanistan, Iran and Russia? Does anyone think those countries will give a hoot? This is just for show.
Trump signs order to designate nations that hold Americans as sponsors of wrongful detention
President Donald Trump signed an executive order on Friday that would let the U.S. designate nations as state sponsors of wrongful detention, using the threat of associated sanctions to deter Americans from being detained abroad or taken hostage.
Atlantic: The World No Longer Takes Trump Seriously
At parades and in the halls of global power, America has been sidelined.
The leaders of Russia, China, and North Korea are not good men. They preside over brutal autocracies replete with secret police and prison camps. But they are, nevertheless, serious men, and they know an unserious man when they see one. For nearly a decade, they have taken Donald Trump’s measure, and they have clearly reached a conclusion: The president of the United States is not worthy of their respect.
Wednesday’s military parade in Beijing is the most recent evidence that the world’s authoritarians consider Trump a lightweight. Russian President Vladimir Putin, Chinese President Xi Jinping, and North Korea’s maximum nepo baby, Kim Jong Un, gathered to celebrate the 80th anniversary of Japan’s surrender in World War II. (Putin’s Belarusian satrap, Alexander Lukashenko, was also on hand.) The American president was not invited: After all, what role did the United States play in defeating Japan and liberating Eurasia? Instead, Trump, much like America itself, was left to watch from the sidelines.
But the parade was worse than a mere snub. Putin, Xi, and Kim stood in solidarity while reviewing China’s military might only weeks after Putin came to Alaska and showed no interest in moving to end Russia’s war against Ukraine. The White House tried to spin that ill-advised summit into at least a draw between Putin and Trump, but when the Kremlin’s dictator shows up with no interest in negotiation, speaks first at a press conference, and then caps the day by declining a carefully planned lunch and flying home, that’s a humiliation, not an exchange of views.
Nor has Trump fared very well with the other two members of this cheery 21st-century incarnation of SPECTRE. In the midst of Trumpian chaos, Xi is adroitly positioning China as the new face of international stability and responsibility. He has even made a show of offering partnership to China’s rival and former enemy India: Chinese diplomats last month said that China stands with India against the American “bully” when Trump was, for some reason, trying to impose 50 percent tariffs on India.
Likewise, the North Koreans, after playing to Trump’s ego and his ignorance of international affairs during meetings in the president’s first term, have continued their march to a nuclear arsenal that within years could grow to be larger than the United Kingdom’s. Trump was certain that he could negotiate with Kim, but the perfumed days of “love letters” between Trump and Kim are long over. Pyongyang’s leadership seems to know that it costs them little to humor Trump politely, but that they should reserve serious discussion for the leaders of serious countries.
Trump responded to his exclusion from the gala in Beijing by acting exactly like the third-tier leader that Xi, Putin, and Kim seem to think he is. As the event was taking place, Trump took to his social-media site—of course—to express his hurt feelings with a cringe-inducing attempt at a zinger. “May President Xi and the wonderful people of China have a great and lasting day of celebration. Please give my warmest regards to Vladimir Putin, and Kim Jong Un, as you conspire against The United States of America.”
Now, the reality is that Russia, China, and North Korea are conspiring against America, but it is beneath both the dignity and the power of an American president to whine about it. Trump continued his unseemly carping with a demand that China recognize the valor of the Americans who died in the Pacific:
The big question to be answered is whether or not President Xi of China will mention the massive amount of support and ‘blood’ that The United States of America gave to China in order to help it to secure its FREEDOM from a very unfriendly foreign invader. Many Americans died in China’s quest for Victory and Glory. I hope that they are rightfully Honored and Remembered for their Bravery and Sacrifice!
This message does not exactly project confidence and leadership; instead, it sounds like the grousing of a man beset by insecurities. A more self-assured commander in chief would have ignored the parade and, if asked about it, would have said something to the effect that the United States has always respected the sacrifices of our allies in World War II. But not Trump: He petulantly declared that he would not have attended even if the cool kids had invited him.
Authoritarians are unfortunately in good company in treating Trump as an incompetent leader. Even America’s allies have recognized that Trump may be their formal partner, but that they mostly get things done with the American president by soothing his ego and working around him. After Trump emerged from the summit in Anchorage essentially parroting Putin’s talking points, seven top European leaders rushed to Washington to tell Trump that he had done well and that they truly, really respected him, but that perhaps he should hold off on being a co-signer of Kremlin policy.
Trump’s damage to American power and prestige would be less severe if the president had a foreign policy and a team to execute it. He has neither: Trump ran for president mostly for personal reasons, including to stay out of prison, and his foreign policy, such as it is, is merely an extension of his personal interests. He holds summits, issues social-media pronouncements, and engages in photo ops mostly, it seems, either to burnish his claim to a Nobel Prize or to change the news cycle when issues such as the economy (or the Jeffrey Epstein files) get too much traction.
Worse, Trump is no longer surrounded by people who care about foreign affairs or can competently step in and create consistent policy. In his first term, Trump had a secretary of defense, James Mattis, who helped to create a national-defense strategy, a document that Trump might have ignored but was at least promulgated to a national-security establishment that needed direction from someone, somewhere. Now, at the Pentagon, Trump has Pete Hegseth, who shows little apparent inclination or ability to think about complexities.
Secretary of State Marco Rubio was supposed to be one of the new “adults in the room,” but he has instead become a man in a Velcro suit, with the president sticking jobs and responsibilities onto him without any further guidance. He has been reduced to sitting glumly in White House press sprays with foreign leaders while Trump embarrasses himself and his guests. Meanwhile, the director of national intelligence, Tulsi Gabbard, is spending her time trying to root out the spies she thinks hate the president. Unfortunately, the agents she’s hunting are Americans, which must bring a smile to Xi’s face and perhaps even produce a belly laugh from former KGB officer Putin.
America is adrift. It has no coherent foreign policy, no team of senior professionals managing its national defense and diplomacy, and a president who has little interest in the world beyond what it can offer him. Little wonder that the men who gathered in Beijing—three autocrats whose nations are collectively pointing many hundreds of nuclear weapons at the United States—feel free to act as if they don’t even think twice about Trump or the country he leads.
What do you expect when you turn your country over to a narcissistic grifter with dementia, 6 bankruptcies, and 34 felony convictions?
The World No Longer Takes Trump Seriously
At parades and in the halls of global power, America has been sidelined.
https://www.theatlantic.com/ideas/archive/2025/09/trump-parade-china-putin-xi-kim/684113
Associated Press: US hiring stalls with employers reluctant to expand in an economy grown increasingly erratic
The American job market, a pillar of U.S. economic strength since the pandemic, is crumbling under the weight of President Donald Trump’s erratic economic policies.
Uncertain about where things are headed, companies have grown increasingly reluctant to hire, leaving agonized jobseekers unable to find work and weighing on consumers who account for 70% of all U.S. economic activity. Their spending has been the engine behind the world’s biggest economy since the COVID-19 disruptions of 2020.
The Labor Department reported Friday that U.S. employers — companies, government agencies and nonprofits — added just 22,000 jobs last month, down from 79,000 in July and well below the 80,000 that economists had expected.
The unemployment rate ticked up to 4.3% last month, also worse than expected and the highest since 2021.
“U.S. labor market deterioration intensified in August,’’ Scott Anderson, chief U.S. economist at BMO Capital Market, wrote in a commentary, noting that hiring was “slumping dangerously close to stall speed. This raises the risk of a harder landing for consumer spending and the economy in the months ahead.’’
Alexa Mamoulides, 27, was laid off in the spring from a job at a research publishing company and has been hunting for work ever since. She uses a spreadsheet to track her progress and said she’s applied for 111 positions and had 14 interviews — but hasn’t landed a job yet.
Bubba Trump is doing a splendid job of trashing our economy! And unfortunately, it’s only just begun.
US hiring stalls with employers reluctant to expand in an economy grown increasingly erratic
The American job market, a pillar of U.S. economic strength since the pandemic, is crumbling under the weight of President Donald Trump’s erratic economic policies.
https://apnews.com/article/jobs-economy-unemployment-trump-firing-f686eab61f7d6b702ca10b12b0250498
Independent: Trump asks Supreme Court to approve his tariffs after warning US would be ‘destroyed’ if they don’t go ahead
President demands highest court weigh in on his use of International Emergency Economic Powers Act 1977 to slap hefty levies on imported goods
Donald Trump has appealed to the U.S. Supreme Court to overturn a lower court’s ruling that the basis for his “reciprocal tariffs” policy was not legal, having warned the country would be “destroyed” without it.
The Court of Appeals ruled on Friday in agreement with a May finding by the Court of International Trade that the president had overstepped his authority by invoking a law known as the International Emergency Economic Powers Act 1977 to place hefty levies on goods imported from America’s trading partners.
Trump was incensed by the decision, insisting it was “highly partisan” and “would literally destroy the United States of America.”
Now, the administration has asked the conservative-majority Supreme Court to decide whether to take up the case by September 10, despite its new term not beginning until October 6, with a view to hearing arguments in November.
“The stakes in this case could not be higher,” Solicitor General D John Sauer wrote in his filing. “The president and his cabinet officials have determined that the tariffs are promoting peace and unprecedented economic prosperity, and that the denial of tariff authority would expose our nation to trade retaliation without effective defenses and thrust America back to the brink of economic catastrophe.”
Attorneys representing small businesses challenging the tariff program said they were not opposed to the Supreme Court hearing the matter and said, on the contrary, they were confident their arguments would prevail.
“These unlawful tariffs are inflicting serious harm on small businesses and jeopardizing their survival,” said Jeffrey Schwab of Liberty Justice Center. “We hope for a prompt resolution of this case for our clients.”
Trump announced his “Liberation Day” tariffs in the White House Rose Garden on April 2, invoking the IEEPA to set a 10 percent baseline tax on all imports and even higher taxes on goods being shipped from nearly every one of America’s trading partners, with China, Canada and Mexico among those hardest hit.
However, his announcement sent shockwaves through the world’s stock markets as investors panicked over their likely economic consequences, eventually forcing Trump into a rethink. He duly announced a week later that the implementation of the tariffs would be suspended for 90 days, a deadline that was eventually extended until August.
Administration officials led by Commerce Secretary Howard Lutnick used the intervening summer months to attempt to broker custom deals with other countries but only succeeded in securing a handful of agreements, notably with the U.K. and Vietnam.
A revised list of tariffs that came into effect on August 7 saw India (51 percent), Syria (41 percent), Laos (40 percent), Myanmar (4o percent) and Switzerland (39 percent) particularly hard done by.
Then, last week, the Court of Appeals agreed with two challenges, one brought by the small businesses and another by 12 states, to rule in a seven-four majority decision that the president’s power to regulate imports under the law does not include the power to impose tariffs.
“It seems unlikely that Congress intended, in enacting IEEPA, to depart from its past practice and grant the president unlimited authority to impose tariffs,” the justices wrote in their decision.
They added that U.S. law “bestows significant authority on the president to undertake a number of actions in response to a declared national emergency, but none of these actions explicitly include the power to impose tariffs, duties, or the like, or the power to tax.”
The Independent is the world’s most free-thinking news brand, providing global news, commentary and analysis for the independently-minded. We have grown a huge, global readership of independently minded individuals, who value our trusted voice and commitment to positive change. Our mission, making change happen, has never been as important as it is today.
Bubba dearest,
Your tariffs are illegal.
You had no legal authority to levy them.
They gotta go.
You gotta go, too.
Period.
Stop.
End of story.
Slingshot News: ‘A Little Nationalism’: Trump Spews Support For White Supremacists Attacking Immigrants During Executive Order Signing
Slingshot News: ‘If Something Bad Happens, Just Blame AI’: Trump Makes Freudian Slip, Accidentally Exposes Himself During Oval Office Remarks
‘If Something Bad Happens, Just Blame AI’: Trump Makes Freudian Slip, Accidentally Exposes Himself During Oval Office Remarks
During his gaggle with the press in the Oval Office yesterday, Donald Trump addresed the controversial video clip of black plastic bags being thrown out of a window of the White House, dismissing it as AI-generated. Afterwards, Trump stated, “if something happens that’s really bad, maybe I’ll just have to blame AI.”
Newsweek: Lower income Americans issued warning over Trump post move
A nearly century-old trade rule that allowed Americans to import small packages without paying duties has been eliminated by President Donald Trump‘s administration, which could disproportionately affect low-income households.
Why It Matters
The “de minimis” exemption, which applied to packages worth under $800 coming into the U.S., had long allowed goods to bypass customs duties and complex paperwork. On August 29, the Trump administration officially ended the rule, which covered 1.36 billion shipments valued at $64.6 billion in fiscal year 2024.
While the end of de minimis came for China—the largest inbound source of such shipments—and Hong Kong earlier this year, the August 29 change impacts every U.S. trading partner. As a result, more than 30 countries’ postal operators restricted or suspended shipments to the U.S. ahead of the policy change, including major trade partners such as India, Mexico, and Japan.
Supporters of the policy shift argue that it levels the playing field for domestic businesses and addresses concerns over unsafe imports. Trump described the de minimis exemption as “a big scam going on against our country, against really small businesses, and we’ve ended it.” The White House said the rule had also been exploited to evade tariffs and enables the import of illegal substances such as fentanyl.
What To Know
According to a 2024 National Bureau of Economic Research paper, eliminating de minimis could reduce consumer welfare by up to $13 billion each year, with lower-income households feeling the greatest impact.
The research found that the de minimis rule is a “pro-poor trade policy,” but its elimination flips it “from pro-poor to pro-rich.”
Shipments to the lowest-income zip codes face an average tariff of just 0.5 percent, compared with 1.5 percent for the wealthiest areas, the research says. In scrapping the rule, that balance flips, with tariffs for low-income communities projected jump to nearly 12 percent, while wealthier areas would see an increase of about 6.5 percent.
On top of that, every package would be charged an administrative fee, a cost that the research says would fall hardest on low-income households since they make more use of de minimis shipments.
“Lower-income households that rely on inexpensive imported goods such as clothing, household items, and phone accessories will be hardest hit,” Usha Haley, Barton distinguished chair in international business at Wichita State University, told Newsweek.
“For these consumers, even small increases in the prices of everyday items are a larger share of their discretionary spending, making the policy regressive in practice.”
Commercial carriers, which handle the majority of these parcels, must now file customs entries and pay tariffs. For postal services, flat fees of $80 to $200 are allowed temporarily, and will soon switch to the origin country’s applicable tariff rate. In many cases, sellers will pass on the cost of this to the consumer.
Sean Henry, CEO and co-founder at supply chain company Stord, agreed the burden of higher prices will be particularly visible in poorer communities. “A disproportionate amount of shipments entering the U.S. under the de minimis program were going to lower-income zip codes,” he told Newsweek.
“Consumers of a lower-income level have often found these extremely cheap products from platforms like Shein and Temu, and those product categories will feel the impact most acutely.”
Why Is De Minimis Being Axed?
The White House and U.S. Customs and Border Protection (CBP) have both contended that de minimis rules have been exploited by bad actors.
According to the CBP, smugglers have exploited de minimis shipments to move drugs and weapons into the country. They often undervalue or mislabel goods, disguising dangerous items as harmless.
The White House has made similar assertions, saying that de minimis has encourages the evasion of tariffs and allowed the funneling of “deadly synthetic opioids as well as other unsafe or below-market products that harm American workers and businesses into the United States.”
What Happens Next
The end of de minimis won’t just impact America’s poorest, with all consumers facing price hikes on goods made outside of the U.S.
“In the short term, consumers are likely to see immediate price hikes,” Robert Khachatryan, CEO at Freight Right Global Logistics, told Newsweek. “Low-dollar items such as $10 accessories or fast-fashion staples will face double-digit percentage increases once merchandise processing fees and duties are applied.”
Lower income Americans issued warning over Trump post move
“Lower-income households that rely on inexpensive imported goods such as clothing and household items will be hardest hit,” one expert told Newsweek.
https://www.newsweek.com/lower-income-americans-warning-trump-de-minimis-2122766