Economists agree: Trump's claims on tariffs are poppycock Former president Donald Trump has said that, if he is elected for a second term, he will impose an across-the-board tariff on all imported products. As is usual with Trump, he doesn't offer many specifics — and they can change day-to-day. Sometimes he has suggested it would be a 10 percent tariff; another time he floated it as high as 20 percent. He has also indicated that he would impose a 60 percent tariff on Chinese products. Trump's undisciplined messaging has given Vice President Kamala Harris an opening to argue, as she did in her nomination acceptance speech at the Democratic convention, that Trump would harm middle-class voters. "He intends to enact what, in effect, is a national sales tax," she said. "Call it a Trump tax that would raise prices on middle-class families by almost $4,000 a year." Her figure is a high estimate from a left-leaning group supportive of Democrats, but other economists agree such tariffs would raise prices for Americans. To which the Trump campaign says: Wait a minute! The former president flatly says tariffs are a "tax on a foreign country." Ohio Sen. JD Vance, his running mate, acknowledges that "some economists" might say costs rise for some Americans but suggests this is a matter of dispute among experts. He makes the case that in the long term, even if prices go up, the outcome is a net benefit for Americans. We challenged the Trump campaign to give us some evidence for these claims. To read our full report and find out the Pinocchio rating, please click the link below. Enjoy this newsletter? Forward it to someone else who'd like it! If this email was forwarded to you, sign up here. Did you hear something fact-checkable? Send it here; we'll check it out. Trump's ad attacks Harris for a tax program that doesn't exist One of Harris's first policy proposals after formally securing the Democratic nomination was to support ending federal income taxes on tips. Trump immediately cried foul, saying she stole an idea that he announced in June. Harris announced her proposal earlier this month in Nevada, a battleground state with a gaming and hospitality industry where many workers receive much of their income in tips. This week, Trump released an ad that claimed: "Don't let Kamala Harris fool you. Not only does Harris support taxing service workers' tips, news reports confirm Biden and Harris have weaponized the IRS to confiscate your tip money. Biden and Harris have literally unleashed the IRS to harass workers who receive tips." This ad, which earned 8 million views within 48 hours of being posted on X, is intended to suggest Harris is simply playing politics and has no intention of eliminating taxes on tips. It uses a classic attack-ad tactic — citing an obscure bureaucratic proposal to make wild allegations. But when we looked into the claim, we discovered something strange: The IRS, after years of study, in 2023 sought comment on a way to streamline tip reporting requirements — but then shelved the idea. So, leaving aside the exaggerations about what the proposal would do, it's simply false to claim Harris "literally unleashed the IRS to harass workers who receive tips." To read the full fact check and learn the Pinocchio rating, click the link below. We're always looking for fact-check suggestions. You can reach us via email, Twitter (@GlennKesslerWP and @AdriUsero) or Facebook. We're also on TikTok. Read about our process and rating scale here, and sign up for the newsletter here. About the cats: It's a Friday and sometimes our fact checks deal with heavy subjects. So we hope to bring a smile to your face. Scroll down to read other fact checks related to the election campaign | 
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