The duties are deposited in the U.S. Treasury. Customs duties increased by $8 billion in the final three months of 2018, an 83 percent gain from the year-ago period thanks in large part to tariffs imposed by Trump, according to estimates from the non-partisan Congressional Budget Office.
Trump’s comments have suggested the U.S. is benefiting without paying, such as a Jan. 3 tweet that “the United States Treasury has taken in MANY billions of dollars from the Tariffs we are charging China and other countries that have not treated us fairly.” A day later he told reporters that “we’ve taken in billions and billions of dollars in tariffs from China and from others.’’
It’s not foreign governments paying, said Dan Anthony, vice president of The Trade Partnership, an economic consulting firm. U.S. businesses paid $2.8 billion in new Trump tariffs in October alone, The Trade Partnership determined in an analysis for Tariffs Hurt the Heartland, a coalition of business and agricultural groups lobbying against Trump’s duties.
Companies aren’t equivocating about the cost. Ford Motor Co. executives, speaking during the Deutsche Bank Global Automotive Conference in Detroit on Wednesday, said they see a $700 million headwind from duties this year. General Motors Co. said late last year that tariffs on steel and aluminum had already cost it $1 billion.
“Let me be very clear: Tariffs are taxes paid by American families and American businesses -- not by foreigners,’’ Thomas Donohue, president of the U.S. Chamber of Commerce, said in his annual state of American business address last week.
This article provided by Bloomberg News.