Jan. 14 (UPI) — President-elect Donald Trump has announced his plan to create a federal body charged with taxing and collecting taxes from U.S. trade partners.
“For far too long, we have relied on taxing our great people using the Internal Revenue Service,” Trump said Tuesday morning in a Truth Social post.
“Through soft and pathetically weak trade agreements, the American economy has delivered growth and prosperity to the world while taxing ourselves,” Trump continued. “It is time for that to change.”
Trump announced his intent to create the “External Revenue Service” to collect tariffs, duties and other revenues that come from foreign sources.
“We will begin charging those that make money off of us with trade,” Trump said. “They will start paying, finally, their fair share.”
He said his inauguration day on Monday will be the “birth date of the External Revenue Service.”
U.S. Customs and Border Protection already is tasked with enforcing and collecting tariff revenues from foreign trade partners, CBS News reported.
The U.S. Trade Representative and Commerce Department establish the tariffs, which the CBP deposits into the federal government’s General Fund.
Trump did not say how the proposed External Revenue Service might improve upon the existing mechanisms for charging and collecting tariffs, duties and other payments from foreign trade partners.
Trump has said he will levy a 25% tariff on all goods from Canada and Mexico and raise the tariff on Chinese-produced goods by 10% after taking office.
Canada, Mexico and China are the United States’ largest trade partners.
