Trump’s $2,000 dividend plan needs Congress approval as it’s a ‘lot of money’, says Scott Bessent

US Treasury Secretary Scott Bessent on Sunday said that President Donald Trump’s plan to pay citizens $2,000 each would require approval from the Congress.

Donald Trump has recently said that he would pay $2,000 to each US citizen with the money it is earning from tariffs.

“We will see,” Bessent said on Fox News’ Sunday Morning Futures.

“We need legislation for that,” he added.

While the US has collected billions in tariffs, Scott Bessent admitted that paying every US citizen except the rich would require a lot of money.

“It’s a lot of money,” he told the TV channel.

“But we’ve taken in a lot of money from tariffs. The tariffs allow us to give a dividend,” the Treasury Secretary added.

Bessent said that “we’re also going to be reducing debt.”

How much does the US need to pay its citizens if Trump’s plan is approved?

Earlier this month, Donald Trump announced that every US citizen in the low and middle income brackets will be given $2,000 each out of the billions of dollars the country has collected from imposing tariffs on almost all countries across the world.

Speaking to reporters on Air Force One on Friday, Trump said the checks would go out sometime next year to “everybody but the rich.”

“A dividend of at least $2000 a person (not including high income people!) will be paid to everyone,” he wrote on Truth Social earlier this week.

Trump also claimed that the tariff income will be used to bring down the US’s debts.

“We are taking in Trillions of Dollars and will soon begin paying down our ENORMOUS DEBT, $37 Trillion. Record Investment in the USA, plants and factories going up all over the place,” he said.

The plan could cost the US government double what it’s projected to take in for 2025, according to an estimate cited by Bloomberg.

The Committee for a Responsible Federal Budget, a centrist watchdog group, estimated a preliminary $600 billion cost for the proposal, if the dividends were designed along the lines of government stimulus payments during the Covid-19 pandemic.

Net US tariff revenue for the fiscal year through September totaled $195 billion and many economists have penciled in about $300 billion for calendar-year 2025.

Scott Bessent said US citizens should start to feel more relief economically in the beginning of next year, citing the tax cuts in Trump’s signature policy bill passed earlier this year.

“So I would expect in the first two quarters we are going to see the inflation curve bend down and the real income curve substantially accelerate,” he said.