Could Donald Trump Replace the IRS With Tariffs? Economists Weigh In [Video]

President Trump’s frequent suggestion that he could eliminate the federal income tax and instead finance the government through high tariffs levied on foreign imports would undoubtedly upend America’s fiscal status quo.

On day one, the president ordered that a hiring “freeze” be placed on government departments and agencies, and recently floated the idea of either terminating or relocating Biden-approved hires at the Internal Revenue Service (IRS) “to the border.”

Taken together, these actions suggest that Trump may be entertaining the idea of abolishing the IRS—a long-standing goal of Libertarians and certain Republican lawmakers—or at least scaling back its operations and replacing it with a newly established External Revenue Service.

Experts have weighed in on this prospect, detailing to Newsweek how such plans could play out, while also offering assessments of the president’s overall approach to tariffs and taxes.

Newsweekhas reached out to the White House via email for comment and …