White House deputy chief of staff James Blair has said the Trump administration is considering options to issue $2,000 tariff rebate checks that would not require congressional approval.
President Donald Trump announced in early November that dividend checks of “at least $2,000” would be paid to every citizen who is not high-income as a result of sweeping tariff revenue. Treasury Secretary Scott Bessent said Sunday that the administration would need legislation to approve the rebate checks to American citizens, but Blair says there may be other options.
“We will look as hard as possible to see if there’s a way to do it without Congress because we’re circumspect about Congress wanting to stop [them],” Blair said. “The law is the law. I think that the most likely outcome is, it requires an act of Congress.”
Blair made the comments at a Bloomberg Government event on Tuesday morning.
He re-upped his comments on X Tuesday, clarifying, “If you watch the whole clip, I said we’ll certainly explore that but also that I think the most likely outcome is that it requires an act of congress.”
Trump told White House reporters this week that the checks would start rolling in the middle of 2026.
A new research estimate from the Yale Budget Lab predicted that the rebate checks would cost the government about $450 billion, which the lab says is “about twice as large as the total revenue that will be raised by the administration’s tariff hikes in 2026.”
So far in fiscal 2025, the administration has brought in $195 billion in customs duty revenue, according to the Treasury Department.
The idea of tariff rebates has been floated by Trump and other lawmakers throughout 2025, as Sen. Josh Hawley (R-MO) introduced legislation in July to give back at least $600 in tariff revenue to taxpayers, though the bill never made much progress in Congress. Trump said he was “thinking about” tariff rebates in July as well.
TRUMP PROMISES $2,000 TARIFF DIVIDEND CHECKS: HOW THE REBATE PAYMENTS COULD WORK
“We have so much money coming in. We’re thinking about a little rebate, but the big thing we want to do is pay down debt, but we’re thinking about a rebate,” Trump told reporters in July.
Paying down the debt has also been floated by Bessent as a way to use tariff revenue, and House Majority Leader Steve Scalise (R-LA) voiced support for paying down the debt with tariff funds on Sunday.