Trump makes dubious US$5,000 election pledge

RARE STRATEGY: Trump likened the payments to shareholder distributions, but dividends are only paid when there is a surplus and the US has US$40tn in debt

US President Donald Trump on Wednesday pledged to send every US adult US$5,000 if Republicans retain control of the US House of Representatives and Senate in the midterm elections, an extraordinary gambit to reverse his party’s sagging fortunes in November.

With approximately 270 million US adults, the idea would cost about US$1.35 trillion, require congressional approval and would further exacerbate the country’s nearly US$1.8 trillion annual budget deficit and concerns about inflation.

It was not immediately clear how the US$5,000 payments would work or whether they would be legal. The White House did not respond to a message seeking details.

Supporters of US President Donald Trump watch him speak at the Republican National Midterm Convention in Dallas, Texas, on Wednesday.

Photo: Reuters

“If the Republicans win, you win with us and you get US$5,000,” Trump said during the Republican’s midterm convention in Dallas. “It will be called the Trump Dividend.”

He likened the payments to a corporation’s distributions to shareholders, citing “our tremendous strength and success economically.”

Within an hour, US Vice President J.D. Vance appeared to try to walk back Trump’s proposal — at least in part — by suggesting the dividend payments would not go to the wealthy.

Vance suggested it could be paid for by US tariff revenues, although the sum of Trump’s promised payments would far exceed US tariff revenue even before the Supreme Court tossed much of the president’s tariff program last year.

The national debt last month topped US$40 trillion for the first time.

Trump has frequently lamented that, during the modern era, the president’s party almost always loses seats in the US Congress during the midterms, and he has looked for unorthodox ways to defy the trend, including this week’s convention.

“We’re going to change that,” Trump said. “There’s no reason for it.”

Marc Goldwein, the senior policy director at the Committee for a Responsible Federal Budget, a think tank in Washington, said Trump has no authority to send money to Americans without approval from Congress.

Companies pay dividends when there is a surplus, but the US is running US$2 trillion annual deficits and has US$40 trillion in debt, Goldwein added.

“The idea that we’ve had fiscal success is backwards and bordering on laughable,” he said. “We don’t have surpluses to give away.”

The move was reminiscent of billionaire Elon Musk’s efforts to buy votes in last year’s Wisconsin state Supreme Court race, where he handed out million-dollar checks to voters to try to boost a candidate who ultimately lost.

Trump has discussed the possibility before, but has never tied it to his party’s electoral fortunes. Earlier this year, he proposed a US$2,000 dividend and said he did not think he needed approval from Congress.

Last year, Trump gave members of the military a US$1,776 check that he called a “warrior dividend.”

“I will get a bill ready so that we can get the Trump Dividend passed immediately after the November 3rd election,” US Senator Bernie Moreno of Ohio wrote on X late on Wednesday. “Because Republicans (and America) will win!”