President Trump has a new plan for how to pay down the national debt: Taxing American consumers and businesses when they buy certain goods from countries subject to his tariffs.
Math is not on his side.
Mr. Trump contended over the weekend that the tariffs his administration has imposed on steel, aluminum and a variety of imported Chinese goods will soon begin to generate sufficient revenue to reduce the federal debt.
It’s a bold claim. Mr. Trump famously promised during the 2016 campaign to pay off the entire national debt as president. Reducing the national debt is not quite as ambitious as paying it all off but it’s still a tall order. To reduce the debt, you must first balance the federal budget — and then go right on past that and start running a surplus, where the government takes in more revenue than it spends every year.
