Trump Announces ‘Foreign Revenue Service’ To Collect Foreign Tariffs | News about Donald Trump

President-elect of the United States Donald Trump has announced his intention to create a new department called the “External Revenue Service”, designed to collect “tariffs, duties and all revenues” from foreign sources.

ua publish on his Truth Social platform, Trump said he would establish the new department as soon as he takes office on January 20.

“Through soft and woefully weak trade agreements, the American economy has provided growth and prosperity to the world while we have taxed ourselves. It’s time for that to change,” Trump wrote on Tuesday.

“We will start charging those who profit from us with trade and they will start paying, FINALLY, their fair share.”

Trump compared the proposed department to the Internal Revenue Service, which is America’s domestic tax collector.

The creation of the new agency requires congressional approval, but Trump enjoys strong support in Congress, as Republicans hold majorities in both the House and Senate.

Tariff increase plan

Critics pointed out that the proposed department would essentially oversee the same functions handled by existing agencies, including the U.S. Commerce Department and U.S. Customs and Border Protection, the latter of which collects tariffs and revenue from other nations.

In his run for a second term, Trump also promised to shrink the size of the federal government, though he has since proposed several new agencies and advisory boards.

For example, Trump has already announced his intention to create the Department of Government Efficiency (DOGE), a nongovernmental group that would advise on how to streamline the bureaucracy and reduce federal spending.

The proposal also drew skepticism that it would replicate the functions of existing government bodies and advisory boards. Trump has bugged entrepreneurs Elon Musk and Vivek Ramaswamy to lead the planned efficiency group.

His new proposal for the establishment of an “Internal Tax Service” is followed by repetition pledges impose heavy tariffs on the US’s three largest trading partners: Canada, Mexico and China.

Shortly after the November election, for example, Trump called on Canada and Mexico to pay a 25 percent tariff on their export to the US, as a way of forcing the two countries to crack down on cross-border drug and migrant trafficking.

He also promised to impose 10 percent tariffs on global imports into the U.S., along with 60 percent tariffs on Chinese goods — tariffs that experts say would raise consumer costs and prompt retaliation against U.S. exports.

The US imports more than it exports from Mexico, Canada and China. Last year, the trade deficit was $67.9 billion for Canada, $152.4 billion for Mexico and $279.4 billion for China, according to the U.S. Bureau of Economic Analysis.

‘Smart marketing’?

The fact that the US runs a trade deficit with many of its trading partners has preoccupied Trump since his first term in office and was cited as part of his rationale for launching a trade war with China in 2018.

“Trump is looking at relations based on whether the US has a trade deficit or a trade surplus with a particular country,” Steve Okun, managing director of Singapore-based consultancy APAC Advisors, said. told Al Jazeera last year. “If the US has a trade deficit with a country, you address the deficit, usually through tariffs.”

Some critics have argued that the announcement of a new tariff collection agency is more of a branding exercise than a substantive policy solution.

“This is smart marketing,” Heather Long, economics columnist for the Washington Post, wrote on social media platform X. “But that doesn’t change the fact that American consumers will end up paying these higher tariffs.”

Democratic lawmakers were also quick to criticize the IRS plan.

“No amount of silly rebranding will hide the fact that Trump plans to raise taxes on American families and small businesses to the tune of trillions of dollars to pay for another round of tax breaks for the rich,” Ron Wyden, the top Democrat on the Senate Finance Committee, said in a statement. statement.