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President Donald Trump boasts that his tariffs protect American industries, lure factories to the United States, raise money for the federal government, and give him diplomatic leverage.Now, he’s claiming they can finance a windfall for American families, too: He’s promising a generous tariff dividend.The president proposed the idea on his Truth Social media platform Sunday, five days after his Republican Party lost elections in Virginia, New Jersey, and elsewhere largely because of voter discontent with his economic stewardshipspecifically, the high cost of living.The tariffs are bringing in so much money, the president posted, that “a dividend of at least $2,000 a person (not including high income people!) will be paid to everyone.”Budget experts scoffed at the idea, which conjured memories of the Trump administration’s short-lived plan for DOGE dividend checks financed by billionaire Elon Musk’s federal budget cuts.“The numbers just don’t check out,” said Erica York, vice president of federal tax policy at the nonpartisan Tax Foundation.Details are scarce, including what the income limits would be and whether payments would go to children.Even Trump’s treasury secretary, Scott Bessent, sounded a bit blindsided by the audacious dividend plan. Appearing Sunday on ABC’s This Week, Bessent said he hadn’t discussed the dividend with the president and suggested that it might not mean that Americans would get a check from the government. Instead, Bessent said, the rebate might take the form of tax cuts.The tariffs are certainly raising money$195 billion in the budget year that ended September 30, up 153% from $77 billion in fiscal 2024. But they still account for less than 4% of federal revenue and have done little to dent the federal budget deficita staggering $1.8 trillion in fiscal 2025.Budget wonks say Trump’s dividend math doesn’t work.John Ricco, an analyst with the Budget Lab at Yale University, reckons that Trump’s tariffs will bring in $200 billion to $300 billion a year in revenue. But a $2,000 dividendif it went to all Americans, including childrenwould cost $600 billion. “It’s clear that the revenue coming in would not be adequate,” he said.Ricco also noted that Trump couldn’t just pay the dividends on his own. They would require legislation from Congress.Moreover, the centerpiece of Trump’s protectionist trade policiesdouble-digit taxes on imports from almost every country in the worldmay not survive a legal challenge that has reached the U.S. Supreme Court.In a hearing last week, the justices sounded skeptical about the Trump administration’s assertion of sweeping power to declare national emergencies to justify the tariffs. Trump has bypassed Congress, which has authority under the Constitution to levy taxes, including tariffs.If the court strikes down the tariffs, the Trump administration may be refunding money to the importers who paid them, not sending dividend checks to American families. (Trump could find other ways to impose tariffs, even if he loses at the Supreme Court; but it could be cumbersome and time-consuming.)Mainstream economists and budget analysts note that tariffs are paid by U.S. importers who then generally try to pass along the cost to their customers through higher prices.The dividend plan “misses the mark,” the Tax Foundation’s York said. “If the goal is relief for Americans, just get rid of the tariffs.” Paul Wiseman, AP Economics Writer
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E-Commerce
Jonathan Haidt, author of ‘The Anxious Generation,’ breaks down the psychology behind Gen Zs social media addiction and what digital dependance actually does to a young person’s brain.
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E-Commerce
It shouldnt be much of a surprise that an AI-powered tool called Oz is heading out of, or near, the Emerald City. On November 12, Microsoft and Land OLakes announced that the two companies have co-developed an AI-powered agricultural science tool called Oz, designed to help farmers and agricultural operations. Specifically, farmers are facing some very serious problems: labor shortages and lower yields associated with changing climates. Further, costs for fuel, fertilizer, equipment, and tools, not to mention international trade issues, have put agricultural operations in an even tighter vise. Oz was built to help agronomists and farmers do more with what they have, tapping into Land OLakess vast reams of agricultural data and insights, previously available only in a bound, 800-page book. Oz itself is an AI application that is accessed and used on a mobile device, tapping into Land OLakess intellectual property to offer guidance and information on the fly. Were putting 20 years of data into [farmers] hands, says Leah Anderson, who serves as SVP of Land OLakes and president of its crop inputs and insights business, WinField United. Oz is designed to be put into the hands of an agronomist, or an agricultural scientist, she says, who can then offer the farmer on the ground insight and guidance about what to plant, where to plant it, and whenalong with myriad other things, such as weather insights, pest and pesticide information, and more. What were doing with AI . . . is using the structured, high-quality, standardized data from over the past 20 years and feeding it into Oz. That cuts out the noise, Anderson says, noting that it also helps farmers trust that the data source was correct. In other words, using Oz as an AI assistant or tool to ask questions about a given farming operation should be more trustworthy and less prone to hallucination than a broader AI tool, such as ChatGPT, which is trained on the entire internet. Oz, instead, generates insights from only one source, which is known and trusted by farmers. Oz is currently in beta testing and is in the hands of numerous retailers across the country, with plans for further expansion this year. Its also been in the works for a whilethe product of a now five-year-long partnership between Land OLakes and Microsoft. Lorraine Bardeen, corporate vice president of AI transformation at Microsoft, says she has worked at the tech giant for more than two decades in numerous departments, from finance to the Xbox team. But she decided to work on the project with Land OLakes because it was a chance to get AI tech into the fieldliterally. The first major waves of our partnership were about digitally transforming American agriculture, bringing a lot of workloads and capabilities to the cloud, she says. Over the last five years, Land OLakes has really established itself as an innovator in American agriculture. Farming on the brink The timing is critical, too, because the agriculture industry is in crisis. A June 2025 study published in Nature finds that even if farmers adapt to a changing climate, staple crops will be 24% lower by the end of the century than they are today. This year, farmers are facing an estimated $44 billion in crop losses due to rising costs, low crop prices, and international trade issues. Farmers are also struggling to find workers, a problem exacerbated by the Trump administrations immigration raids. Unchecked, these issues could compound, leading to less food production, higher prices, and even shortages. While a tech tool cant help on the trade war front, it may be useful when deciding how much or little to water certain crops, when weather patterns are expected, what types of fertilizer may be the most effective given specific soil compositions, and more. In all, it could help replace lost manpower and make better decisions with materials on hand in order to reduce waste and costs. Again, all the suggestions and insights that Oz generates draw on data that Land OLakes has compiled over many years. Land OLakes has created this really rich set of intellectual property, Bardeen says. But its historically been brought to bear in an 800-page tome. It brings incredible value, information, and insights to farmers. Oz shifts everything from a literal, static book to a dynamic, AI-powered coach. Anderson adds that farmers have more to look forward to from the Land OLakes-Microsoft partnership. American farmers are under incredible pressurewe see the stress on their faces, she says. For those farmers, its about reducing uncertainty, and nobody knows more about that than we do. What were doing with Oz is really the tip of the iceberg as to what were going to be able to do with AI.
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E-Commerce
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