2025-09-19
32 分钟It's an oft repeated saying that the revenue of the state is the state.
And once upon a time in America,
that meant the state was all about the collection of duties on imported goods.
In fact,
the US Customs Service was among the first federal agencies set up after the Constitution came into effect way back in 1789.
No wonder.
old US customs buildings are among the country's most historic.
But then, around the time of the First World War,
the US Constitution was amended to introduce income tax and today the bulk of federal government funding relies on the likes of income taxes with customs duties amounting to only a very small percentage.
But Trump's tariffs could change that.
The question we're going to be asking today is by how much could this drive towards tariffs change how the US government collects revenue and what will the effect of those changes on the US economy be?
Hello and welcome to the Economic Show for the Financial Times.
I'm Claire Jones.
I'm the FT's US Economics Editor.
And today I'll be speaking with Martha Gimbal.
Martha is the Executive Director of Yale's Fantastic Budget Lab and a former advisor to the Biden Administration White House.
Thanks so much for joining us today, Martha.
Thank you for having me.
I'd like to kick off with a very, very kind of like big broadbush question.
We're seeing this focus on tariffs from the new US administration.