By FATIMA HUSSEIN, Associated Press
WASHINGTON (AP) — President-elect Donald Trump announced plans Tuesday to create a brand new agency called the External Revenue Service to gather tariffs and other revenue from foreign nations.
“We're going to start charging those who make money with us with trade and they're going to start paying,” Trump said on his social media site Truth Social on Tuesday. He compared his planned creation with that Internal financial servicethe country's domestic tax collector.
Creating a brand new agency requires an act from Congress, and Republicans hold majorities in each the House and Senate.
Trump, who has vowed to shrink the scale of presidency, would create a brand new agency to take over functions already carried out by existing agencies, including the Commerce Department and the U.S. Department of Government Customs and Border Protectioncollecting tariffs and revenue from other nations.
The president-elect has tapped two business titans to run his company Department of Government Efficiency, or DOGEa non-governmental task force tasked with finding ways forward Federal employees laid offCutting programs and eliminating federal regulations, all a part of what he calls his “Save America” agenda for a second term within the White House.
billionaire Elon Musk and co-entrepreneurs Vivek Ramaswamy are leading DOGE's ambitious efforts to cut back the scale and scope of the federal government.
Tariffs, with the specter of a possible 25% levy on all goods from allies resembling Canada and Mexico and 60% on goods from China, have develop into a benchmark of Trump's economic agenda as he begins his second term.
Economists have cited the fee of tariffs are passed on to consumersand are generally skeptical of them, seeing them as a mostly inefficient way for governments to boost money and promote prosperity.
Democratic lawmakers quickly criticized the External Revenue Service plan.
“No amount of silly rebranding will hide the fact that Trump is planning a multitrillion-dollar tax hike on American families and small businesses to fund another round of tax breaks to the rich,” the Oregon senator said. Ron Wydenthe highest Democrat on the Senate Finance Committee said in an announcement.
Originally published:
image credit : www.mercurynews.com