Trump’s Tariffs Tax Hike Not So Coincidentally Spares the Rich

Donald Trump’s tariffs will end up hurting most Americans, acting as a tax increase for nearly every income group, with a minimal impact on the top one percent of earners.

Those are the findings of an analysis by the Institute on Taxation and Economic Policy released Wednesday. The study found that if Trump’s tariffs of 10 percent on most countries, 25 percent tariffs on certain sectors for specific countries like Mexico and Canada, and 145 percent tariffs on China were still around in 2026, the poor would be hit the hardest.

Specifically, the bottom 20 percent of Americans making less than $29,000 per year would in effect have a tax increase of 6.2 percent on their yearly income. The middle 20 percent of Americans, with incomes between $55,000 and $94,000, would see the equivalent of a tax hike of 5 percent of their yearly income. But the top one percent of Americans, making more than $915,000 per year, would only see a relative tax increase of just 1.7 percent.

Even before the 2024 elections, Trump’s tariff idea was painted as a giveaway to the richest Americans, benefiting those with major assets. Small businesses are already seeing negative effects from Trump’s moves, unable to keep up with higher prices from suppliers. At one point, even the government wasn’t making any money off of the tariffs—a glitch at U.S. ports prevented their collection.

Even aside from glitches, the government’s tariff revenue is far below the billions promised by Trump. And his constant flip-flops smack of market manipulation—Trump even bragged about how much money his wealthy executive friends made when stocks jumped after he announced a pause in most of his tariffs earlier this month. The president also has his own scheme to personally cash in.

But the markets are still sliding lower each day the tariffs are in effect. Trump has backed off of his attacks on China and Federal Reserve chair Jerome Powell for now. However, until there’s some kind of deal with China and other countries that allows Trump to save face on an obviously ill-though out concept of a plan, the economy will continue to suffer as Americans are forced to live under a tax hike.

Vice President JD Vance thought it was “crazy” that he was one of the last people to see Pope Francis before he died early Monday morning.

“I thought a lot about that, it’s pretty crazy actually,” Vance told reporters while on a visit to Agra, India, on the tarmac on Wednesday. 

“Obviously I was able to see him very briefly the morning of Easter Sunday. I knew he was very ill, I didn’t realize how sick he was. The thing that I will always remember Pope Francis for is that he was a great pastor. People on the margins, poor people, people suffering from diseases, they saw in Pope Francis an advocate, and I think a true expression of Christian love.”

Pope Francis has had a tenuous relationship with Trump, Vance, and the Christian right in America for the entirety of his papacy. He was a noted environmentalist who often chastised the Trump administration for its lack of humanity on immigration and climate change and its misuse of Catholic Social Teaching.  

Pope Francis’s funeral will be held on Saturday, according to the Vatican.

Itamar Ben-Gvir, Israel’s far-right security minister who openly supports the ethnic cleansing of Palestinians, said on Wednesday that the Republican leaders he met with in the United States were in full support of his plans to bomb Gaza’s humanitarian aid stations.

“I had the honor and privilege of meeting with senior Republican Party officials at Trump’s Mar-a-Lago estate,” Ben-Gvir wrote on X. “They expressed support for my very clear position on how to act in Gaza and that the food and aid depots should be bombed in order to create military and political pressure to bring our hostages home safely.”

This is par for the course for a government that has massacred likely hundreds of thousands of Palestinians in the name of self-defense. Ben-Gvir doubled down on his hatred shortly after.

“I see the reports about the debate over who should bring ‘humanitarian’ aid into Gaza: Well, it’s a fundamentally stupid debate, because the entire Strip should not receive any ounce of aid as long as our hostages are being held there,” he said.

Ben-Gvir was welcomed to Florida with open arms. He met with the Miami Police Department, spoke at a Jewish school in Fort Lauderdale, and stopped by an Israeli-Russian-owned gun store. He also had dinner at Mar-a-Lago, which President Trump was not present for. Ben-Gvir will be in New York City on Thursday.

Ben-Gvir has a long history of cruel, racist, anti-Arab sentiments that has led him to be convicted of eight charges related to incitement of racism and support for Israeli terrorism against Arabs. Multiple protests have erupted around his visit to the United States.

Illinois Representative Jan Schakowsky is planning to announce her retirement next month, leaving the Democratic primary for her district wide open.

“I’m going to announce my plans on May 5th. Stay tuned,” Schakowsky said, Politico reported Wednesday. That’s the day that Schakowsky’s annual Ultimate Women’s Power Lunch is scheduled in Chicago.

The veteran Democrat’s exit announcement will invite other Democrats to try to grab her seat. State Senator Laura Fine and Evanston Mayor Daniel Biss are both expected to announce bids for Illinois’s 9th congressional district after Schakowsky officially makes her plans public.

But there’s another opponent already in the field. While Schakowsky has been on retirement watch for at least a few months, 26-year-old lefty content creator Kat Abughazaleh revealed her own gambit for Illinois’s vote. Abughazaleh announced her campaign on March 24.

In a potential sign of the times, Abughazaleh’s campaign outpaced Schakowsky’s first-quarter fundraising in just one week after she announced her candidacy, reportedly raising more than $379,000 in eight days, according to Abughazaleh.

However, less than 1 percent of Abughazaleh’s fundraising stemmed from campaign contributions of more than $200 within the region that she intends to represent, which stretches from Chicago’s North Side through southeast McHenry County.

Abughazaleh’s campaign manager, Sam Weinberg, said that the political newcomer had received more than 1,100 donations from people within Illinois, though the vast majority were under $200—something that Weinberg blamed on the “economic struggles” faced by many Americans that Abughazaleh is “seeking to address.”

“The average American can’t spare $200 or more to donate to a political campaign, and we shouldn’t fault people for that,” Weinberg told WTTW News. “This is the result of an economy that is working for the few rather than the many, and this dynamic should be entirely unacceptable in the richest country in the history of the world.”

The U.S. government is reportedly preparing to deport immigrants to Rwanda who can’t be sent back to their country of origin due to fears of prosecution.

The Handbasket newsletter reported Tuesday that a State Department cable sent from the U.S. Embassy in Rwanda’s capital, Kigali, on March 13 stated that the country would be willing to accept such people. A new cable sent Tuesday from the State Department said that a refugee from Iraq, Omar Abdulsattar Ameen, became the first person to be officially deported to Rwanda thanks to this arrangement.

It’s quite a departure from the public deal the U.S. cut with El Salvador to accept deported immigrants in January, which resulted in legal challenges and at least one immigrant, Kilmar Abrego Garcia, being mistakenly sent to the country. The use of Rwanda as a third country for deportations has not been publicly disclosed by the country or the U.S. government.

“This successful relocation—and Rwanda’s subsequent agreement to accept additional third-country nationals (TCNs)—proved the concept for developing a new removal program to relocate TCNs from the United States to Rwanda,” Tuesday’s cable states, according to The Handbasket.

The cable mentions a “wish list” from Rwanda, including policy concessions as well as a single $100,000 payment for “social services, residency documents, and work permits.” The newsletter confirmed that the payment was made, but how the U.S. responded to other items on the list is unknown.

“Rwanda also agreed to accept another ten TCNs of various nationalities,” the cable also states, while adding that the country “seeks a bilateral dialogue to develop a durable program to facilitate these relocations and avoid reinventing the wheel with time-intensive ad hoc negotiations.”

Similar to Abrego Garcia, Ameen was accused of being a terrorist by the first Trump administration, who called him a member of ISIS and said he abused the refugee resettlement program. In 2014, Ameen and his family were granted refugee status, but he was arrested in 2018 by “dozens of armed men” at his Sacramento home.

The administration claims that Ameen murdered an Iraqi police officer as part of an ISIS plot, and tried to have him deported back to Iraq to stand trial. Ameen maintains that he is innocent, saying that he was in Turkey at the time of the murder, awaiting refugee status with the United Nations.

A federal judge ruled in 2021 that the case against Ameen was “dubious” with “unreliable” witnesses and allegations that were “simply not plausible,” ordering his immediate release. But just after he was released, Immigration and Customs Enforcement, under the Biden administration, picked him up again and began deportation proceedings.

Last year in May, Ameen said in a statement that “I am so grateful to the judge for listening to all the evidence, and I thank God that in this country, I had the right to defend myself and be found innocent. I love America and want to enjoy living here with my wife and children for the rest of my life. It saddens me that I still have to fight for my freedom again.”

Yet Ameen was let down by the U.S. and is now the first person to be deported by the Trump administration to Rwanda, and on the basis of weak evidence to boot. Will he get any restitution, or will he be stuck overseas like Abrego Garcia?