Presdent Trump has said most Americans can expect to get a "dividend" from tariffs of $2,000 or more, as the levies generate a surge in revenue.

That payoff could come in the form of the tax cuts laid out in the economic policy bill passed earlier in 2025, Treasury Secretary Scott Bessent suggested.

On Sunday, Trump took to social media post to say: "A dividend of at least $2,000 a person (not including high income people!) will be paid to everyone."

Speaking to ABC later, Bessent stressed he hadn’t talked to the president but speculated the $2,000 dividend "could be just the tax decreases that we are seeing on the president’s agenda."

The comments follow Trump's back and forth with reporters on Thursday in the Oval Office, where he recognized that US consumers are "paying something" for tariffs.

"I think that they might be paying something. But when you take the overall impact, the Americans are gaining tremendously," Trump said.

It was among the first acknowledgments from Trump that US consumers are footing at least some of the bill for his tariff regime, the bulk of which faced scrutiny before the Supreme Court this week.

In a closely watched case, a majority of the justices — both the court's three liberal-leaning justices, as well as three more conservative ones — offered skeptical questions regarding the president's authority to impose his most sweeping duties.

The court, which has a 6-3 conservative majority, has previously backed Trump in a series of decisions this year. But justices appeared skeptical of the president's authority, casting doubt over the centerpiece of Trump's second-term economic agenda.If the Supreme Court does not side with Trump, it's widely expected that the administration will seek out alternative methods to carry out the US's trade agenda.

Trump, meanwhile, has made clear he considers the case to be of paramount importance to his legacy, even as his administration touts the other legal avenues he could use to impose the duties.

Read more: What Trump's tariffs mean for the economy and your wallet

The US and China reached a trade truce last week. The thaw means China will suspend additional export controls on rare earth metals and end investigations into US chip companies. Meanwhile, the US will pause some of Trump’s "reciprocal tariffs" on China for another year. On Thursday, the US pushed forward on plans to pause punitive measures on China's shipbuilding industry.

China said on Friday it has designed a new rare earth licensing regime that could help speed up shipments.

The White House has said it will not allow the sale of Nvidia's latest scaled-down AI chip to China, according to a report in The Information. This guidance would effectively shuts Nvidia out of China.

Trump announced on Thursday that the US and Uzbekistan had reached a trade and economic deal, with Uzbekistan to purchase and invest $35 billion in the next three years and more than $100 billion over the next 10 years in some US sectors.

A spat over an ad featuring the late Ronald Reagan continues between the US and Canada. The Canadian prime minister said recently he apologized to Trump over the ad.

President Trump has said his sweeping tariffs will produce a hefty dollar \\"dividend\\" for regular Americans, as he mocked critics of his trade policy.

\\"A dividend of at least $2000 a person (not including high income people!) will be paid to everyone,\\" Trump said in a post to Truth Social on Sunday that began: \\"People that are against Tariffs are FOOLS!\\"

Trump pointed to the boost to US coffers from levies so far, plus the record-setting run in stocks as reasons to believe in tariffs.

Asked by ABC about the comments, Treasury Secretary Scott Bessent focused on the long-term goal of tariffs — boosting investment in the US — rather than the short-term surge of revenue generated.

Bloomberg reports:

Bessent said he hadn’t spoken to the president about this idea but “the $2,000 dividend could come in lots of forms, in lots of ways. It could be just the tax decreases that we are seeing on the president’s agenda — no tax on tips, no tax on overtime, no tax on Social Security – deductibility on auto loans.” ...

One question surrounding the administration’s defense of tariffs is whether revenue raised from tariffs are de facto taxes, which Chief Justice John Roberts said have “always been the core power of Congress.”

Trump cited revenue flows in his Truth Social post on Sunday, saying the US is “taking in Trillions of Dollars and will soon begin paying down our ENORMOUS DEBT, $37 Trillion.”

Asked about the president’s comment, Bessent expanded the argument.

“Over the course of the next few years we could take in trillions of dollars,” he told ABC. “But the real goal of tariffs is to rebalance trade and make it more fair.”

Read more here.

Bloomberg reports:

The US and China suspended port fees on each other’s ships for one year and paused probes into maritime practices, in another sign of easing tensions between the world’s two largest economies.

The Trump administration paused a probe into China’s shipbuilding industry, and in turn, Beijing said it was shelving its own investigation and putting off special port fees on US vessels.

China also said that it put on hold sanctions on US units of a major South Korean shipbuilder, Hanwha Ocean Co. (042660.KS).

The stand-down in tensions over maritime issues tallies with a rapprochement in the broader confrontation between Washington and Beijing after a summit between the countries’ leaders. While shipping is not among the highest-profile issues, most global trade is carried by sea and the industry is a cornerstone of global commerce. Still, analysts cautioned that risks remained.

“As long as the suspension remains, the potential risk to upend global shipping remains,” said Jayendu Krishna, a director at Drewry Maritime Services, which advises shipping companies on business strategies.

Read more here.

The AP reports

Honda reported Friday that its profit for the first fiscal half through September fell 37% from the previous year, as the damage from President Donald Trump’s tariffs offset the lift from solid motorcycle sales.

Tokyo-based Honda Motor Co. recorded a 311.8 billion yen ($2 billion) profit for April-September, down from 494.6 billion yen a year before.

Sales over the six months totaled 10.6 trillion yen ($69 billion), down 1.5% from nearly 10.8 trillion yen.

Honda lowered its profit projection for the fiscal year through March 2026 to 300 billion yen ($2 billion), which would be a decline of 64% from 835.8 billion yen the year before. It had earlier forecast a 420 billion yen ($2.7 billion) annual profit.

Honda, which makes the Accord sedan and Odyssey minivan, said an unfavorable currency rate also hurt its bottom line, erasing 116 billion yen ($756 million) from its operating profit over the six months.

Read more here.

The Trump administration is warning that if the Supreme Court were to dismantle President Trump's tariffs, it would cause \\"unnecessary economic pain and hardship,\\" damaging financial markets and confidence.

\\"To the extent that the policy would be reversed or watered down, that would damage financial markets,\\" Counselor to the Treasury Secretary Joe Lavorgna said this week in an interview with Yahoo Finance. \\"You've seen record high equity markets, record low credit spreads. You've seen commitments by all different countries and companies to invest in the US.”

\\"It would damage confidence. The economic system — capitalism — works on confidence,\\" he added.

While economists acknowledge it could lead to greater uncertainty, they and others say the impact of a ruling against Trump could have other impacts — including positive ones.

Read more here.

Indian food and restaurants have become a favourite among New Yorkers, especially traders and executives on Wall Street, outshining their London rivals, but they now face the pain of President Trump's tariffs.

The duties that Trump imposed on India back in July, due to New Delhi's purchase of Russian oil has doubled the rate on most exports from the country and Indian restaurants have taken a hit.

Bloomberg News reports:

Even as the legality of those tariffs is being debated before the Supreme Court, the impact has been tough on New York’s Indian food community. The price of products that define the cuisine, from spices and rice to pulses and tea, has risen, cutting into tight margins for restaurants as well as retailers. (And it’s a problem not everyone want to discuss because of the highly charged politics around the conversation.)

Chef and restaurant operator Salil Mehta — founder of Fungi Hospitality Group, which includes grilled-meat specialists Kebab aur Sharab on the Upper West Side of Manhattan — has seen the wholesale price of a 40-pound bag of basmati rice climb to $45 from $30. Likewise, a 500-gram pack of chili powder that was $7 now costs him $10.50.

Indian and Asian restaurants more broadly are particularly vulnerable to these cost increases, says Mehta, in part because they suffer from the stigma of being a “cheap” cuisine. “People don’t mind paying $35 for a cacio e pepe, for five ounces of pasta. But there’s a different perception that [Indian] food should be cheap already,” he says.

As a result, Mehta has had to raise prices at his restaurants. Entrees are about $5 more than they were pre-tariffs, and appetizers are “a couple of dollars more here and there.” But he says “it still doesn’t cover us, it means the margins are even lower than they were.” Mehta is putting all his food costs under a microscope, he says. “Now if the server drops the food at the wrong table, it’s a problem.”

Read more here. 

Businesses paying higher duties due to President Trump's tariffs, alongside trading partners that have signed trade deals and still in negotiations, will now face months of uncertainty while they wait for a verdict from the Supreme Court, whi heard arguments this week on the legality of Trump's tariffs.

If the Supreme Court rules against Trump's tariff agenda, how will this impact global economies?

Bloomberg News reports:

Who’s Possibly Affected?

India and China have been among the biggest targets of US tariffs, while Brazil has also been hit with a very high impost. Switzerland was a surprise target, too.

According to Bloomberg Economics, a broad ruling against Trump would cut the US average effective tariff rate to 6.5%, a level not seen since before the president’s April 2 Rose Garden announcement of his “Liberation Day” tariffs on dozens of countries. The average effective tariff rate is different (and usually lower) than the headline rate that has been announced by the US due to various exemptions and pre-existing levies.

China

Trump and Chinese President Xi Jinping agreed last week to lower US tariffs by 10% and to continue to suspend other threatened tariffs for a year, which provides some certainty for companies. Trump could use other legal authorities to justify tariffs if needed, and many of the issues between the rival superpowers come down to their chokeholds on key products, meaning ongoing tensions aren’t likely to fade anytime soon.

Already, Chinese exports to the US have seen seven straight months of double-digit declines, with shipments down more than 25% in October from a year earlier, according to data released on Friday.

Read more here.

Switzerland's Finance Minister Karin Keller-Sutter said on Thursday that they are keen to secure a trade agreement with the US and that talks are ongoing. But the minister acknowledged that much of the final decision lies with President Trump.

Reuters reports:

\\"Ultimately, it is up to the U.S. president to decide whether or not to agree to a deal,\\" Keller-Sutter said.

Switzerland was ‌left reeling after Trump imposed tariffs of 39% on Swiss imports in August, among the highest duties levied in his global trade reset.

Keller-Sutter, who has come under fire for her handling of the dispute, said ⁠she had fulfilled her duties ‌as Switzerland's president when she spoke to Trump before the tariffs announcement.

\\"He did not agree with the negotiated ‍agreement. Period,\\" she told newspaper Blick in an article published on Thursday.

\\"We have to live with that. The talks are continuing.\\"

She remained ​tight-lipped on the negotiations, or whether an agreement could be ‌reached this year.

Read more here.

Reuters reports:

Taipei (Reuters) -Nvidia (NVDA) CEO Jensen Huang said on Friday that there were \\"no active discussions\\" about selling the company's state-of-the-art Blackwell ​chips to China.

Blackwell is Nvidia's current flagship artificial intelligence chip that the Trump administration has so ‌far prevented from being sold to China, for fear it would aid the Chinese military and domestic AI industry.

While there was speculation last week ‌that talks between U.S. President Donald Trump and Chinese President Xi Jinping in South Korea could end with a deal to allow a scaled-down version of the Blackwell to be sold in China, so far there have been no signs of an agreement.

\\"Currently, we are not planning to ship anything to China,\\" Huang said, soon ⁠after arriving in the city of Tainan ‌for his fourth public visit to Taiwan this year.

Read more here.

Reuters reports:

The White House has informed other federal agencies that it will not permit Nvidia (NVDA) to sell its latest ​scaled-down AI chips to China, The Information reported on ‌Thursday, citing three people familiar with the matter.

Nvidia has provided samples of the chip to several ‌of its Chinese customers, according to the report.

The chip, known as the B30A, can be utilized to train large language models when efficiently arranged in large clusters, a capability many Chinese companies require, the report ⁠added.

An Nvidia spokesperson told Reuters ‌that the company has \\"zero share in China's highly competitive market for datacenter compute, and do not include ‍it in our guidance.\\"

White House did not immediately respond to Reuters' request for a comment.

Nvidia is working on modifying the B30A's design in hopes that the U.​S. administration will reconsider its stance, the The Information report said,‌ citing two company employees.

Read more here.

President Trump acknowledged Americans are paying \\"something\\" for tariffs during a back-and-forth with reporters on Thursday in the Oval Office.

The US president has imposed tariffs on many US trading partners, from China to Canada. He frequently says that those tariffs are helping to boost the US economy, whereas economists largely agree that they are simply a tax on consumers.

This week, the US Supreme Court met to hear arguments on the legality of Trump's tariffs and whether the president overstepped his authority. During discussions on Thursday, one reporter noted the comments from Chief Justice John Roberts, who said that tariffs were actually taxes ​paid by Americans.

Reuters reports:

\\"No, I don't agree. I think that they might be paying something. But when you take the overall impact, the Americans are gaining tremendously.\\"

For months Trump has repeatedly emphasized his view that other countries pay the tariffs. He has set levies on imports from China, Canada, the European Union and others around the world.

Removing tariffs from his proverbial tool box would take ⁠away an instrument that Trump says he has used to ​end conflicts between other countries and bring economic fairness to ​the U.S., which faces tariffs put in place by its trading partners as well.

Read more here.

Joseph LaVorgna, an adviser to US Treasury Secretary Scott Bessent, joined Yahoo Finance Senior Reporter Jennifer Schonberger to discuss the Trump administration's arguments and what happens if the court knocks down the tariffs.

Watch below:

Bloomberg reports:

The US is pushing forward on President Donald Trump’s pledge to pause a series of penalties aimed at China’s shipbuilding industry, a key concession in his interim trade pact with counterpart Xi Jinping.

The office of US Trade Representative Jamieson Greer said Thursday it was soliciting feedback on the one-year truce. The trade office proposed pausing tariffs on imports of ship-to-shore cranes and chassis from China in addition to a suspension of fees levied on Chinese-built and -operated merchant ships calling at American ports.

China has agreed to halt retaliatory measures in return for US action, according to a fact sheet released by the White House after Trump and Xi met last week.

USTR is accepting comments on the pause from noon Thursday through 5 p.m. Friday New York time, according to a notice from the agency. The pause would begin Nov. 10.

The move is effectively a yearlong pledge not to invoke tariffs or other penalties stemming from a US probe into China’s actions in the maritime, logistics, and shipbuilding sectors. Trump, however, has routinely shifted course on his trade agenda.

Read more here.

Signs suggest that the Supreme Court may be preparing to overturn President Trump's most sweeping tariffs. Doing so could result in uncertainty across industries, as businesses and countries may expect refunds and will have to adjust accordingly.

Bloomberg reports:

Whether or not the high court rules Trump wrongly imposed tariffs on dozens of nations by invoking the 1977 International Emergency Economic Powers Act, the reality is that the president loves tariffs. And trade lawyers and experts say there are plenty of other laws he can draw on to fill the gap if needed, even if none offers the immediacy Trump relishes.

That means uncertainty will hang over big geopolitical negotiations with China, the European Union and other trading partners, and the day-to-day conduct of business for the thousands of companies paying the duties or trying to find ways around them.

Betting markets late Wednesday showed declining odds that Trump will prevail, and shares of large US retail brands rallied on hopes for relief from import taxes he imposed this year.

Read more here.

A growing number of trade attorneys, analysts, and politicians are preparing for President Trump's tariffs to be struck down by the Supreme Court and any resulting uncertainty. Prevalent theories suggest that, if the tariffs are overturned, the Trump administration would use other trade policy changes to continue its efforts.

Reuters reports:

On Wednesday during ​oral arguments, Supreme Court justices cast doubt on Trump's authority to impose tariffs under the 1977 International Emergency Economic Powers Act (IEEPA), which contains no references to tariffs - only language ‌on regulating imports during national emergencies declared by the U.S. president.

\\"Based on the questions posed by the justices, the IEEPA tariffs appear to be in jeopardy,\\" said Damon Pike, a principal with BDO USA's customs and trade services practice.

He added that all the ‌court's justices, except Samuel Alito and Clarence Thomas, \\"seemed skeptical that IEEPA gives President Trump the power to levy unlimited tariffs on every product imported from every country around the world.\\"

Read more here.

Reuters reports:

U.S. Treasury Secretary Scott Bessent on Wednesday said he came away from a Supreme Court hearing on the legality of President Donald Trump's sweeping tariffs feeling ​\\"very, very optimistic.\\"

Bessent told Fox Business Network's \\"Kudlow\\" program he thought plaintiffs challenging ‌Trump's use of a 1977 law to justify tariffs had \\"almost embarrassed themselves,\\" and he was confident the Supreme Court would reverse a ‌lower court ruling that the tariffs were illegal.

Asked how the administration would return the large amounts of funds already collected if the Supreme Court upheld the ruling, Bessent, who attended the arguments on Wednesday, said: \\"We'll cross that bridge if we come to it, but I'm confident we won't have to.\\"

U.S. Supreme Court justices heard more ⁠than 2-1/2 hours of oral ‌arguments on the case on Wednesday, with both conservative and liberal justices raising doubts about whether a 1977 law meant for use during national emergencies gave Trump the power to impose tariffs or ‍whether the Republican president had intruded on the powers of Congress.

Read more here.

The US Supreme Court's hearing on Wednesday has fueled speculation around President Trump's tariffs and whether they will remain in place. The question around the legality of Trump's trade agenda and whether the US president overstepped his authority in imposing them, provoked a tough integration from the Supreme Court Justices.

US Treasury Secretary Scott Bessent left the hearing on Wednesday saying he felt \\"very optimistic,\\" in reference to the outcome.

If Trump's tariffs are struck down, will the US have to refund the money it has made so far from its global trade levies? If a refund were to be made some feel it will be a complete \\"mess.\\"

Other experts have said that a rejection of tariffs by the Supreme Court would be a \\"temporary setback\\" for the president, who will likely seek out other methods in order to push his tariff agenda.

Reuters reports:

POTENTIAL REFUNDS \\"A MESS\\"

The issue of refunds was raised by Justice Amy Coney Barrett, who said that it \\"could be a mess\\" for the courts to administer refunds to U.S. importers who have paid tariffs that were declared illegal.

Neal Katyal, the lawyer representing five small businesses challenging the tariffs, said that these firms would get their refunds automatically if the court ruled ​against the Trump administration, but all other companies would have to lodge administrative protests to get money back. \\"It's a very complicated thing\\" that could take a long time, he added.

But Katyal said ‌the court \\"could limit its decision to prospective relief\\" by only stopping future collections.

Joseph Spraragen, a customs lawyer in New York, said a ruling that includes no provisions for refunds would result in major new court challenges from companies that paid duties.

\\"If they're illegal today, they were illegal in February 2025 and in April, when the reciprocal tariffs kicked in,\\" said Spraragen, a partner at the firm of Grunfeld Desiderio Lebowitz Silverman & Klestadt.

He said the Supreme Court would likely remand the case to a lower court, most probably the U.S. Court of International Trade, to issue instructions to the Trump administration to rescind the tariffs and issue refunds. The most expedient method would be to issue refunds through the Customs and Border Protection's Automated Customs Environment processing system, he said, but that could take up to a year.

\\"⁠Keep in mind that the administration is not going to be eager to just roll over and give refunds,\\" Spraragen said.

SHIFTS IN ​LAWS

Natixis analyst Christopher Hodge said the \\"bureaucratic complexity\\" surrounding refunds was among a murky set of outcomes if the administration loses at ​the Supreme Court. Such a loss would only be a \\"temporary setback to the Trump trade agenda,\\" he said, as the administration would shift to trade laws that offer clear tariff authority, including Section 232 of the Trade Expansion Act of 1962, a national security trade statute, and Section 122 of the Trade Act of 1974, which allows ‍temporary 15% duties for 150 days.

Read more here.

President Trump has met with executives from Switzerland to discuss tariffs and trade. The US president suggested that more trade talks were needed as both sides attempt to rebuild the frayed relationship.

Bloomberg News reports:

Trump has imposed a 39% tariff on the country, threatening to drive up costs for chocolatiers including Lindt and watchmakers such as Swatch Group and Rolex SA.

Swiss diplomats have also been engaged in negotiations with the officials in Washington in the hope of having the levy cut. The Swiss government was informed of the private-sector push, but didn’t control it, according to the economy ministry in Bern.

“This is a private initiative by Swiss business leaders, which was supported by the State Secretariat for Economic Affairs in its preparation, but is taking place independently of the Federal Council’s involvement in this matter,” a spokesperson said in an email.

Read more here.

In the first few months of President Trump's tariff regime, uncertainty and chaos defined the auto sector. US carmakers felt exposed to higher tariffs, and many believed the industry would have to pass these higher costs on to consumers. However, the prospects for the Big Three US automakers — GM (GM), Ford (F), and Stellantis (STLA) —seem to be improving.

The FT reports:

Jim Farley, Ford chief executive, described his group as “the most American company with a $2bn liability” while Stellantis chair John Elkann warned that the US car industry was being “put at risk” by the levies. General Motors (GM) was also caught in the middle of the Trump storm because of its large manufacturing operations in South Korea, Mexico and Canada for vehicles that are sold in the US.

But prospects for the so-called Big Three have recently improved.

Both GM and Ford (F) have reduced the estimated size of their maximum tariff exposure for this year from a combined $7bn to $5bn.

As GM raised its profit guidance in October, chief financial officer Paul Jacobson indicated to investors that next year would be “even better than 2025,” driving up its share price by 15 per cent.

“GM is stronger and more resilient than ever. We are adjusting our business to a new tariff and regulatory environment,” Jacobson said.

Read more here.

The Supreme Court on Wednesday began its highly anticipated consideration of President Trump’s sweeping blanket tariffs, with the lawyer for the government making an audacious case.

Trump’s duties \\"are not revenue-raising tariffs,\\" US Solicitor General D. John Sauer argued before the court, calling the tens of billions of dollars currently being brought in each month \\"only incidental.\\"

He went further, saying Trump has based his moves this year \\"not on the power to tax.\\" What Trump is imposing, he said, \\"are clearly regulatory tariffs, not taxes.\\"

The argument was met with immediate skepticism, leading both legal experts and the markets to conclude Wednesday that these blanket tariffs — a centerpiece of President Trump’s trade program — may be in peril.

Read more here.

Oral arguments at the Supreme Court have concluded. The emerging consensus is that a majority of the high court's justices appeared skeptical of President Trump's authority to impose the tariffs. We'll outline a sampling of coverage below.

From Bloomberg:

Hearing arguments in Washington Wednesday, three conservative justices questioned Trump’s use of an emergency-powers law to collect tens of billions of dollars in tariffs a month.

Chief Justice John Roberts said the tariffs were an “imposition of taxes on Americans and that has always been the core power of Congress.” Trump-appointed Justices Neil Gorsuch and Amy Coney Barrett also asked skeptical questions, though all three also probed arguments pressed by tariff opponents.

The New York Times:

Justice Barrett, who is seen as a key vote, questioned the scope of President Trump’s reciprocal tariffs, which she described as “across the board.”

“Is it your contention that every country needed to be tariffed because of threats to the defense and industrial base?” she asked. “I mean, Spain? France? I mean, I could see it with some countries but explain to me why, as many countries needed to be subject to the reciprocal tariff policy, as are.”

Several justices also noted that Mr. Trump is the first president in 50 years to claim the emergency statute allows the president to impose tariffs.

The Wall Street Journal said in its headline that the \\"Supreme Court appears skeptical of Trump's tariffs.\\"

Over the course of nearly three hours, justices on both sides of the court’s ideological divide asked questions that signaled skepticism of the government's claim that Ieepa gives the president unbounded authority to impose global tariffs. Still, the arguments weren’t a complete rout, and conservative justices in particular made clear that they were cognizant of Trump’s broad powers to address foreign affairs.

One more reaction, nodding to the dipping prediction market odds of US government victory:

I'm no lawyer, but the Supremes seem unimpressed by the President's lawyer in the tariffs case.

Prediction markets have revised the probability of the White House winning (and the tariffs being found constitutional) from 45% to 30% in just half an hour.

The question at the… pic.twitter.com/IzKVOo8zOu

— Justin Wolfers (@JustinWolfers) November 5, 2025