SUBSCRIBE TO OUR FREE NEWSLETTER
Daily news & progressive opinion—funded by the people, not the corporations—delivered straight to your inbox.
5
#000000
#FFFFFF
5
#000000
#FFFFFF
tariffs
Trump Wants $6 Trillion Tax Hike to Fund $600 Billion in New War Spending
It’s good to see an old man suffering from dementia enjoying himself, but there are much cheaper and less deadly ways to entertain such a person.
Jan 09, 2026
President Donald Trump is now apparently planning to request a $600 billion increase in annual military spending starting in October, financed by another huge jump in import taxes, aka tariffs. I said “apparently” since it’s not clear that he thinks he has to request authority for this spending increase or massive tax hike from Congress.
Under the Constitution there is no ambiguity on these issues. Congress has the power to tax and authorize spending. However, Donald Trump and the Republican Congress have not shown much respect for the Constitution in Trump’s second term and it’s not clear the Supreme Court has any greater level of respect. So, who knows if there actually will be requests for Congress to vote on, or whether he will just do it with no legal authority.
Anyhow, apart from the mechanism employed, this would be a massive increase in spending, coming to just under 2% of GDP. It would also amount to a massive tax increase if Trump actually offsets the spending, as he claimed he would, rather than just increasing the deficit.
Taken over a decade, a $600 billion increase in annual taxes would come to $6 trillion, roughly $45,000 per household. It is real money. It would be difficult, but not impossible, to raise this much money through tariffs.
That doesn’t sound like much of an affordability agenda, but Trump was never really into that word anyhow.
Our imports currently come to just to over $3.2 trillion annually. A straight calculation would imply that an across-the-board tariff increase of 19 percentage points could cover the cost of Trump’s military buildup. But the increase in the tariff rate on most items would end up being considerably higher for two reasons.
First imports would fall sharply in response to a tariff of this size. Let’s say they fall by 15%, this would put imports at $2.7 trillion, which would mean a tariff increase of 22 percentage points would be needed to get to Trump’s $600 billion.
The other reason that the tariff on most items would likely be higher is that Trump will presumably exempt some items other for policy reasons or in response to payoffs at Mar-a-Lago. In the first category, much of what we import are intermediate goods used in manufacturing finished products like cars or planes. High tariffs on these inputs will hurt industries that Trump is ostensibly trying to foster.
The other part of the story is that we have seen many executives make the pilgrimage to Mar-a-Lago, most notably Apple CEO Tim Cook, and walk away tariff exemptions on items they import. This trek will be more widely traveled when CEOs are looking at tariffs two or three times their current levels.
That means the import tax on many products will have to increase in the neighborhood of 30 percentage points to hit Trump’s revenue targets. That will be a big hit to many households’ budgets, as we know that the bulk of tariff revenue gets passed on to consumers in the form of higher prices. That doesn’t sound like much of an affordability agenda, but Trump was never really into that word anyhow.
The other side of the story is that this massive increase in military spending will mean a huge diversion of resources from productive uses. Scientists who might have been developing better computers or software for civilian uses will instead be working for military contractors. The same is true for researchers developing new drugs or medical equipment.
This will also be the case with millions of less-highly educated or narrowly trained workers. Instead of working as teachers or in various areas of healthcare, such as physical therapists or home healthcare assistants, they will be employed in the sort of jobs needed by military contractors. That’s a huge drain for the economy and corresponds to the reduction in purchasing power as a result of Trump’s massive tax increase.
If there was some clear argument as to why we needed such a massive increase in taxes and diversion of resources, as when we confronted the Nazis in World War II, perhaps this hit to the economy could be justified. But no one made such claims, not even Trump in his 2024 campaign, until Trump invaded Venezuela and decided it was fun.
It’s good to see an old man suffering from dementia enjoying himself, but it would be much cheaper and less deadly if we just gave him a good video game.
Keep ReadingShow Less
Project 2025 and the Year It Made
Over the past year, Trump has followed the plans laid out by Project 2025 almost to the letter, leaving the rest of the world reeling.
Jan 03, 2026
The year 2025 was marked by the Trump shock: an unprecedented wave of extreme brutality, unapologetic nationalism, and unrestrained extractivism that shook the world as never before since 1945.
To better understand what made it all possible, and how to confront it in the future, we must turn to its roots. Namely, to Project 2025, the 920-page report published by the Heritage Foundation, Washington’s most influential conservative think tank, in 2023. From one state department to another (security, immigration, education, energy, trade, etc.), the report outlines the strategy to follow after taking office, targeted for January 2025. It even specifies the content and timetable for executive orders, the presidential decrees signed publicly and in rapid succession by Donald Trump since his inauguration.
The report drew on the work of hundreds of conservative experts—as they call themselves—brought together by the foundation, which is lavishly funded by corporations and billionaires. What stands out most when reading the report today is the degree of technical, political, and ideological preparation behind the Trump administration. Over the past year, Trump has followed the plans laid out by Project 2025 almost to the letter. The new National Security Strategy published by the White House on December 5 reads almost like a copy-and-paste of the project.
Revealingly, Project 2025 identifies several political and ideological enemies. First, there are the globalist liberals, staunch advocates of absolute free trade and unfettered globalization, who are portrayed as useful idiots. Easy to defeat and despise, these liberal elites care little for deindustrialization, job losses, and the destruction of local communities and family ties. In contrast, the proud conservatives behind Project 2025 claim to protect these communities. They do so first by asserting US power in the world, relying heavily on tariffs and all-out extractivism: outright asset seizures (Ukraine, Panama, Greenland), imposing military tribute on Europe, and doubling down on fossil fuels. Next, they champion hard work, family values, and respect for natural and cultural hierarchies. The scourge of « fatherlessness » (growing up without a father, a situation that particularly affects ethnic minorities) is repeatedly condemned and blamed on liberal narratives that deny traditional gender roles and undermine the traditional family.
In reality, the true enemy of the nationalist and extractivist right embodied by Trumpists is the global social-democratic left. That left can win, provided it learns to organize and move beyond the liberal ruts of the past.
But Project 2025 is mainly concerned with an enemy it deems much more dangerous: internationalist socialists and their plans for a global superstate. The fear may seem laughable, as Trumpists sometimes tend to conflate mild-mannered European social democrats with fearsome Marxist revolutionaries. Yet it must be taken seriously. First, because supporters of democratic socialism such as Bernie Sanders and Zohran Mamdani have become very popular among young Americans over the past decade.
Even more importantly, the authors of Project 2025 seem genuinely alarmed by international debates on taxation, climate reparations, or reforms of the global financial system that have gained traction since the 2008 crisis and the Paris Agreement of 2015. They loathe Brazil’s proposal to create a global tax on billionaires just as much as they resent the significant issuance of international currency (Special Drawing Rights by the International Monetary Fund) that occurred after the crises of 2008 and 2020. All the more so because the US will soon lose its veto power over such decisions as its share of global GDP declines.
A particularly telling section concerns trade, which takes the very unusual form in Project 2025 of two chapters setting out opposing positions. The main chapter advocates an avalanche of tariffs closely resembling what Trump implemented in 2025. Like the US president, the author seems to be under no illusions about the extent of industrial job creation this could bring. In general, the report displays little empathy for the poorest and relies on an instrumental, paternalistic, and hierarchical approach to the working-class vote. The main objective of tariffs seems to be to generate revenue for the federal government and to continue dismantling the progressive tax system—a project shared by liberals and conservatives since the 1980s, though conservatives have always maintained a lead in this area.
Project 2025’s second chapter on trade opposes such a strategy. The dissenting conservative author fears that by so openly repudiating the principles of free trade, the door may eventually be opened to global socialist planning. In future, opponents of the market will use this precedent to regulate trade based on social and climate criteria: the ultimate nightmare for conservatives. In the end, Trumpists opted for protectionism for both electoral and financial reasons, but the fear of a socialist drift is clearly acknowledged.
In reality, the true enemy of the nationalist and extractivist right embodied by Trumpists is the global social-democratic left. That left can win, provided it learns to organize and move beyond the liberal ruts of the past. Trumpist brutality is a sign of weakness. The US is losing its grip on the world. Across the Atlantic, some believe they can escape this decline by brandishing weapons and instructing Europeans to preserve their racial purity to maintain the Western alliance. All they will do is further tarnish their country’s image and convince the rest of the world that the future will increasingly be written without them.
This column was first published by Le Monde.
Keep ReadingShow Less
Trump's Tariffs Won't End the Bipartisan War on the Working Class
A political economy of corporations and the wealthy lobbying for and receiving increased government help to snag higher profits and market share has ruled the roost of US society.
Jan 01, 2026
As 2025 ended, one thing was as plain as day. American small businesses and their customers are paying a price for global trade tariffs, an import tax, courtesy of President Donald J Trump. How this economic fact plays out legally and politically is an open question, connected with long-running trends.
On the legal front, small businesses, over 700 of them at last count, have joined together as part of an amicus curiae (“friend of the court”) to the US Supreme Court with their testimonies against President Trump’s tariffs on foreign imports (Trump v. V.O.S. Selections, Inc. and Learning Resources, Inc. v. Trump).
Recall that the president promised to use tariff revenue on foreign imports to increase American manufacturing. Why the need for tariff revenue to grow private-sector manufacturing across the US?
Corporate America has been disinvesting in industrial production stateside for decades. Shifting manufacturing abroad and eliminating unionized employment for reasons of higher profits has been one of the hallmarks of the US economy under Democratic and GOP administrations. That’s a bipartisan consensus.
Centering kitchen table issues of labor and living conditions can garner working class support in rural and urban America in 2026. The Democratic and Republican parties have billions of reasons to fight such a working-class agenda.
Looking at this trend with a class and politics lens, it's a kitchen table issue. Material reality, such as wage income and prices for groceries and rent, shapes ideology and systemic thinking about the political economy of living and working. The current moment of social tumult has been gathering steam since the end of the Vietnam War, which heralded the sunset of a postwar US economy of broad-based prosperity, with blue collar, family-wage employment for male workers.
Dubbed neoliberalism under successive Democratic and Republican presidents, a political economy of corporations and the wealthy lobbying for and receiving increased government help to snag higher profits and market share has ruled the roost of US society.
That government intervention, from copyrights and patents to misnamed free-trade pacts, favors big business and investors to the detriment of the working class. This trend ushered in the growth of the “working poor.” To be fair, President Trump didn't begin this class war of a few against the many.
Meanwhile, the Supreme Court with a conservative majority is expected to issue a decision on a “demand for restitution” from businesses paying the Trump tariffs soon. The case challenges the president’s authority to impose tariffs due to a “large and persistent annual US goods trade deficits,” creating a national emergency.
Persistent implies a long-standing trend. This economic emergency of an imbalance in American exports and imports is a symptom of the corporate agenda. It’s driving both political parties support to deindustrialize America.
Political resistance to this agenda exists, but it’s weak. Think of the rise and fall of the anti-corporate globalization movement decades ago.
On that note, Public Citizen does magnificent work to advance the kitchen table issues of the working majority. However, the other side has unlimited cash to buy politicians, a major reason the corporate agenda barrels ahead.
Centering kitchen table issues of labor and living conditions can garner working class support in rural and urban America in 2026. The Democratic and Republican parties have billions of reasons to fight such a working-class agenda. The parties rely in part upon division to bolster their power and privilege.
Countering such a strategy of the ruling class is a tall order, but a necessary step. There will be many opportunities to build unity against the bipartisan consensus of war and Wall Street and for peace and social justice in the new year.
Keep ReadingShow Less
Most Popular