'We have a lot of money coming in': Donald Trump defends tariffs, says US should’ve done this years ago

U.S. President Donald Trump on Monday doubled down on his sweeping tariff regime, defending his decision to slap punitive import taxes on dozens of countries and vowing to use the revenue windfall to pay down America’s national debt.

“We’re going to pay down debt. We have a lot of money coming in—much more money than the country’s ever seen,” Trump told reporters. “One of the things we’re going to be doing is reducing debt. We should’ve done this many years ago.”

The president insisted the tariffs are about fairness, not leverage. “I'm not looking for leverage, I'm looking for fairness. We want to see reciprocal wherever we can and as much as possible,” he said. “Our country will be taking in hundreds of billions of dollars.”

Trump has imposed tariffs of up to 50% on imports from countries with which the U.S. runs trade deficits, and a 10% “baseline” on nearly all others. Invoking a 1977 law, he declared the trade imbalance a national emergency, setting the stage for the most aggressive trade realignment in modern U.S. history.

The latest executive order, signed just hours before an August 1 negotiation deadline, hiked tariffs for 69 countries. Some of the harshest penalties include: 50% on Brazil, 41% on Syria, 39% on Switzerland, 35% on Canada, 25% on India, and 20% on Taiwan. In contrast, Pakistan saw its rate reduced from 29% to 19%—a notable exception.

Trump said he had intended to expand this strategy in his first term but was interrupted by the COVID-19 pandemic. “I did this during my first term with China. We didn’t get to the rest because COVID hit,” he noted.

Six months into his second term, Trump has reshaped the global economic landscape—replacing decades of multilateral trade policy with a hardline America-first approach, demanding unilateral concessions or imposing punishing consequences.