A landmark Supreme Court ruling against President Trump’s tariffs has cost the federal government an estimated $1.7 trillion in projected revenue through 2036, according to a new analysis by the Committee for a Responsible Federal Budget (CRFB), setting the United States on a course toward a national debt of $58 trillion within the next decade if the country continues its current rate of spending.
The nonpartisan fiscal watchdog, which released its findings on Tuesday, found that the court’s decision striking down tariffs imposed under the International Emergency Economic Powers Act (IEEPA) has altered the country’s fiscal trajectory in the direction of larger debts and deficits.
Without that revenue, CRFB projects the national debt will climb to 125% of GDP—or roughly $58 trillion—by fiscal year 2036, compared to a baseline projection of $56 trillion, or 120% of GDP, that assumed the IEEPA tariffs would remain in force. “Deficits in that scenario will rise to 7.1% of GDP, or $3.3 trillion,” CRFB warned, versus $3.1 trillion under the original baseline.
A Patchwork Fix Falling Short
In the immediate wake of the ruling, the Trump administration moved to stanch the bleeding by invoking Section 122 of the Trade Act of 1974, a rarely used statute that allows a president to impose broad-based import surcharges for up to 150 days. The administration set the emergency tariff at 10%, with Trump publicly announcing plans to raise it to 15%—though that increase had not yet been formally enacted as of the publication date.
The CRFB analysis shows that at a 10% rate, the Section 122 tariff would generate only about $35 billion over its 150-day window—replacing just 52% of the approximately $65 billion in IEEPA revenue that would have been collected during that same period. Bumping the rate to 15% improves the picture somewhat, producing roughly $50 billion and replacing about 77% of the near-term loss.
If Congress were to make the Section 122 tariff permanent, or if the administration successfully replicated it through Section 301 or Section 232 authorities, a 10% rate would generate $925 billion through 2036—recouping just over half of the $1.7 trillion lost. At 15%, the recovery rises to $1.3 trillion. Fully closing the hole would require an additional $400 billion to $800 billion in net new revenue beyond the Section 122 levels, CRFB estimated.
Revenue at Risk
The CRFB’s latest projection comes in the context of a war on words between the budget-hawk think tank and the White House itself. The day after the Supreme Court ruling, CRFB President Maya MacGuineas warned that losing the IEEPA tariffs could add roughly $2 trillion to the national deficit over the next decade, a projection that Treasury Secretary Scott Bessent immediately took issue with on Fox News. “Maya MacGuineas should be ashamed,” Bessent declared on air, suggesting she should “take the word ‘responsible’ out of her organization’s name.” He called her numbers “wrong” and insisted federal revenue would hold steady because the president had quickly replaced the struck-down levies with new 10% tariffs—exactly the subject of these latest projections from the MacGuineas’ shop.
MacGuineas dismissed the broadside as “a bit of an odd response,” noting that the CRFB actually agrees with the administration’s goal of using tariff revenues to improve the country’s fiscal outlook. The group had previously praised the original IEEPA tariff haul as a “bright spot in an otherwise gloomy fiscal picture.” Furthermore, it appears that the Trump White House will have to refund the tariff revenue from 2025, as the U.S. Court of International Trade ruled earlier this week that “all importers of record” were “entitled to benefit” from the Supreme Court ruling.
The ruling has put at risk what had been, until recently, a meaningful new stream of federal income. Trump’s original IEEPA tariffs—which included rates as high as 20% on Chinese goods, 15% on EU imports, and 50% on Brazil—were generating significant customs receipts that fiscal analysts had factored into deficit projections. The Congressional Budget Office’s February 2026 baseline included that revenue; the Supreme Court’s decision effectively erased it.
CRFB noted one important caveat: its $1.7 trillion estimate assumes that already-collected IEEPA tariff revenue will be refunded to importers. The Supreme Court did not directly rule on the question of refunds, and the timing and mechanics of any reimbursements remain unresolved. If no refunds are issued, the net revenue loss shrinks slightly, to $1.6 trillion.
The think tank urged lawmakers to act quickly, calling on Congress to “enact revenue or offsets sufficient to fully replace lost IEEPA revenue” and to codify any replacement tariffs or other fiscal measures into law — rather than relying on executive actions that have already proven vulnerable to legal challenge.
“President Trump’s tariffs were generating meaningful revenue amid a bleak fiscal outlook,” the CRFB concluded. “However, relying on uncertain legal authorities or temporary measures can undermine the stability of enacted tariffs.” The think tank encouraged policymakers to enact revenue or offsets sufficient to fully replace lost IEEPA revenue, and to codify those changes into law.
