(By Chen Jishen, Edited by Zhang Guangkai)

"We've made a lot of money from tariffs, $2 billion a day. Do you believe it?" said U.S. President Donald Trump during a speech at the National Republican Congressional Committee on April 8th. On the same day, he mentioned the $2 billion figure again while signing an executive order.

However, the latest data released by U.S. Customs and Border Protection clearly refuted his claim.

On April 16th, U.S. Customs and Border Protection (referred to as CBP below) issued a statement indicating that since April 5th, under the newly implemented "reciprocal tariff" policy, the total additional revenue collected by customs was only $500 million.

Behind U.S. Customs directly "contradicting" Trump's description, the department itself is also being crushed by Trump's tariff policies. Last Friday, there was a 10-hour system failure in the U.S. Customs system. During the outage, due to the inability to input exemption codes, a large number of incoming goods were forced to be detained and suspended for customs clearance.

Last year, U.S. Customs had just completed a comprehensive upgrade from mainframes to cloud services. Troy A. Miller, then acting director, once stated that this was a "leap in the technological capabilities of U.S. Customs." This time, the failure obviously dimmed the previous publicity.

Bigger pressure came from manpower. Data shows that the personnel gap at U.S. Customs and Border Protection has reached 5,850, yet they only received a recruitment budget for 150 employees. The economic losses caused by border delays every year are quite significant, which will inevitably make Trump's fantasy of saving the fiscal crisis through tariffs greatly discounted.

Tariff Revenue Contradicts Trump

As the frontline implementing Trump's reciprocal tariffs, U.S. Customs recently disclosed its latest tax results.

Since April 5th, 2025, under Trump's latest round of "reciprocal tariff" policy, CBP has cumulatively collected more than $500 million in additional tariffs.

CBP emphasized: "Even with a 10-hour malfunction in the financial system at the beginning of April, causing some importers to be unable to input tax-free codes, the daily average tariff revenue of $250 million by U.S. Customs remained unaffected."

To verify this, the latest "Daily Revenue Report" published by the U.S. Treasury on Monday showed that the total deposits under the "Customs and Special Excise Tax" category on April 15th were only $305 million, and the average daily deposits for "tariffs and certain excise taxes" reported by the U.S. Treasury over the seven workdays since April 5th were $227 million. This is basically consistent with CBP's claim of $250 million per day, but this amount falls far short of Trump's repeated claims of $2 billion per day.

This means that the increment in tariff revenue brought about by CBP policies is quite limited.

The U.S. fiscal situation has not been alleviated either. As of Tuesday, the cumulative deposit total for the Treasury Department this month was approximately $2.3 billion, and the cumulative deposit total since the start of the fiscal year in October was approximately $55.5 billion.

In late March, Peter Navarro, Trump's senior trade advisor, said in an interview: "Tariffs on cars alone could increase revenue by about $100 billion... Additionally, other tariffs will bring in $600 billion annually, totaling about $6 trillion over ten years."

If we calculate the so-called $600 billion in annual tariff revenue according to Navarro's claim, dividing it by 365 days gives approximately $1.65 billion per day, which seems to be close to Trump's claimed $2 billion per day.

An American economist calculated and found that the so-called $600 billion in annual tariff revenue is actually the result of multiplying the $3.3 trillion worth of imported goods in the U.S. in 2024 by 20%.

Navarro's calculation seems absurd, but it can be somewhat justified from a certain perspective. Trump's tax cut bill in 2017 will expire by the end of this year, and Trump has been pushing to extend the bill. To find ways to fill the $500 billion to $1 trillion fiscal gap caused by the tax cuts, Navarro has always hinted that additional tariff revenues would cover these expenses.

Erica York, vice president of federal tax policy at the Tax Foundation, interpreted that Navarro ignored changes in consumer behavior when tariffs were raised, retaliatory measures by other countries, and their impact on other sources of taxation.

However, for Trump, if the tax collection is unfavorable, besides blaming non-cooperation from various countries, he will inevitably require U.S. Customs to strictly inspect smuggling and carefully review clearance items, making the customs department another "scapegoat" in the tariff war.

Frequent Changes in Tariff Policies and Policy Pressures

Aside from the far lower-than-expected tax collection, Trump's tariff policies are also testing the internal capacity of U.S. Customs.

In early 2024, U.S. Customs officially announced the shutdown of its last mainframe computer, fully transitioning to modernized cloud services, and referred to it as a milestone in achieving technological modernization.

Troy Miller, then commissioner of CBP, stated that the new system replaced 3.9 million lines of outdated code, allowing the U.S. to shift from mainframes 35 years ago to more modern technical solutions, shorten IT delivery times, and provide greater flexibility to meet changing mission requirements. The new system allows remote access to data and applications from any location with internet connectivity, providing greater flexibility.

However, this advanced system encountered a test just one year after its full-scale launch.

On April 11th, U.S. Customs issued an alert to shippers, stating that due to the core system's inability to process input commodity codes, goods entering the U.S. could not enjoy the 10% lower tariff rate offered by Trump.

The problem was resolved within ten hours, but Customs did not explain why this issue occurred. However, the market generally believed that frequent changes in Trump's tariff policies led to additional technical maintenance issues with the core "Automated Commercial Environment" (ACE) system. Trump's erratic style of governance has caused concerns among many U.S. agents.

A U.S. furniture dealer said that after Trump announced a 90-day tariff exemption, they immediately placed large orders with factories in Cambodia. Similar operations by many U.S. importers would lead to a sudden surge in customs clearance volume in the short term. If the customs system encounters problems again during critical moments, they may face potential economic losses.

Aside from testing the internal systems of Customs, Trump's policies have also placed additional responsibilities and work pressures on U.S. Customs.

After Trump signed an order on April 2nd to cancel the small package tax exemption treatment for China, the United States Postal Service (USPS) immediately stated that they would cooperate with U.S. Customs and Border Protection (CBP) to study taxation plans.

In 2023, the number of such packages passing through U.S. Customs exceeded 1 billion for the first time, higher than 134 million in 2015. By the end of last year, U.S. Customs and Border Protection stated that they processed about 4 million small items daily, many of which were transported from China via online retail platforms like Shein and Temu. With these shipments now subject to additional tariffs, this will place immense pressure on U.S. Customs both systemically and in terms of manpower.

According to CBP's official annual trade data manual, "The Trade Fact," in 2023, the U.S. imported a total of 28 million containers, equivalent to processing approximately 77,000 containers daily. Official data shows that the inspection ratio for containers by U.S. Customs is 3%-5%, which is already the upper limit of current staffing levels.

Considering that U.S. Customs needs to conduct random inspections and levy tariffs on such a massive volume of small packages, even assuming no reduction in packages arriving in the U.S., based on the 2023 data of 1 billion packages, even at a 1% inspection rate, it would exceed ten times the workload of current container inspections. This enormous workload gap cannot possibly be met by simply having existing employees work overtime, potentially leaving a personnel shortfall of tens of thousands.

It should be noted that Customs cannot simply hire social workers to fill positions related to tariffs. CBP previously testified before Congress that training a qualified import specialist to determine origin takes at least six months.

Rapid Increase in Personnel Pressure

To cope with the surge in customs clearance pressure and frequent changes in processes, the shortage of personnel in U.S. Customs has become increasingly severe.

As the third-largest department in the U.S., with about 68,000 employees by the end of 2024, the U.S. Customs and Border Protection (CBP) has around 22,000 employees responsible for inspecting passengers and goods at various entry ports. In reality, only about 2,500 employees are involved in tariff collection at the 328 U.S. entry ports and 14 overseas pre-clearance points.

Among these 2,500 employees responsible for tariffs, they are further divided into import specialists who judge origin, financial advisors who audit finances, and trade specialists who consult on trade rules. Under the current reciprocal tariff backdrop, these employees' workloads have surged, and their work pressure is self-evident.

Before Trump took office in 2025, the National Treasury Employees Union (NTEU), as the employee union of CBP, once published a report warning of the risk of insufficient personnel in the CBP department.

The report stated that the personnel gap at U.S. Customs and Border Protection has reached 5,850, and considering the arrival of the department's retirement wave, major entry ports in the U.S. may become paralyzed due to a lack of professionals.

In 2024, Troy Miller, then director of U.S. Customs and Border Protection, emphasized to the U.S. Congress that without approval for budget funds to increase recruitment, the CBP would experience a 400% employee attrition rate by 2028.

Despite efforts to call for increased staffing for CBP, due to opposition from Republicans, the Homeland Security Appropriations Bill approved by the House of Representatives in 2024 only allocated a recruitment budget for 150 employees, far below the 1,000-personnel budget proposed by Biden and U.S. Customs.

Even now, before the retirement wave has emerged, the Joint Economic Committee of Congress pointed out the impact of the insufficient personnel in U.S. Customs on the economy in a report submitted to Congress. The report stated that border delays cause about $5 billion in economic losses annually for the U.S. When U.S. Customs and Border Protection relocates officials to temporary duty at the U.S.-Mexico border, the manpower shortages at their affiliated ports become even more severe.

After Trump took office, Elon Musk's DOGE department carried out large-scale layoffs of government employees, which dashed hopes for increasing personnel at U.S. Customs. The only consolation is that Musk's layoff spree has not yet reached the CBP department where Customs is located.

Original Source: https://www.toutiao.com/article/7494203097137299978/

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