US President Donald Trump says he would offer every adult American a $5,000 (£3,700) payout if Republicans win both chambers of Congress in November’s midterm elections – a plan that would cost more than a trillion dollars.
The offer was made in a speech at the party’s first-ever convention in the middle of a US presidential term.
He gave no details on how it would work or be funded – saying only that the money would have to be spent in the US. Vice-President JD Vance has linked the plan to the revenue that Trump has raised from US tariffs on imported goods.
Democrats labelled it an “empty promise” and others questioned whether such a pledge was legal or feasible.
It may be the first time a US president offered such a payout to Americans, in the context of an election year plea to get out and vote.
The idea drew raucous applause at the convention and Trump seemed to relish the moment.
There are nearly 270 million American adults, meaning a $5,000 payout would cost the US government some $1.3 trillion.
Questions have begun to be raised about whether his plan is feasible – especially as prices rise in the US, partially as a result of the war that the US and Israel started with Iran in February.
Iran’s retaliation has included attacks against US bases and allies in the Gulf – but crucially it has largely closed the Strait of Hormuz, through which about a fifth of the world’s oil and liquefied natural gas used to transit.
The blockage has caused fluctuations in oil prices worldwide and Trump has faced pressure from his party to end the war.
On Wednesday, the US president warned his supporters that the war would not end until after the midterms and that oil prices would not come down until then.
He made the comments ahead of his speech in Texas, repeating it at the convention where he argued that short-term economic pain was worth it to prevent Tehran from developing nuclear weapons.
Trump’s long speech at the Republican convention in Dallas, Texas, touched on the core of the conflict – the impact on Americans’ standard of living. His pledge to increase their spending power drew raucous applause in the hall.
“If the Republicans win the House of Representatives and the United States Senate, both of them,” Trump said, “I will issue a dividend to every adult citizen in the United States of America for $5,000.”
“We don’t want you going to Canada to spend the money,” he said.
“We don’t want you going to China, to Germany. You got to spend the money in the United States of America.” It is not clear how the spending would be monitored.
The BBC has asked the White House for further clarification on how Trump’s plan would work.
One former Republican strategist and pollster said the promise should be firmly seen in the context of an election that is now less than two months away.
“It is an extraordinary promise, and I’m not sure where that money is going to come from – but it is campaign season,” Robert Moran told the BBC World Service’s Newsday programme.
Moran described it as a “novel solution to an interesting problem”, noting that the historical tendency was for the party of the president to lose seats in Congress during the midterm elections.
It is not the first time that Trump promised such payouts – he has previously proposed $2,000 cheques to be funded by tariff revenues.
Those payments, however, never materialised, no relevant legislation has been passed and no federal dividend programme currently exists. In February, the Supreme Court ruled most of Trump’s tariffs unlawful.
Vice-President JD Vance indicated that these post-election payments could similarly be made possible by the money Trump has raised using his wide-ranging tariff programme.
“What the president is talking about is fundamentally a dividend for American workers,” Vance told Fox News.
“We’re taking in an extraordinary amount of revenue because the president of the United States is actually standing up to both foreign companies but also foreign countries who’ve been taking advantage of America’s workers.”
Vance went on to say: “I don’t think it’s a controversial idea.”
Other US politicians in the past have also promised economic rewards in return for electoral success.
For instance, Democrats in Georgia promised $2,000 relief payments if their party took control of the Senate at the height of the Covid-19 pandemic.
In the US, Congress authorises spending. The midterm elections, which will be contested on 3 November, will ultimately decide whether or not Trump’s Republican Party keeps its hold over both the House and Senate.
During his speech in Dallas, the president did not say whether he planned to ask Congress for such approval for the payments – which he dubbed “Trump Dividends”.
However, in addition to the overall cost to the US treasury, the latest proposal from the US president may raise legal questions.
Federal laws prohibit payments that are intended to influence voting.
The issue came to the fore ahead of the 2024 presidential election, during which billionaire Trump supporter Elon Musk offered cash incentives to registered voters in seven swing states who signed a certain petition.
However, some experts say the promise made by Trump during Wednesday’s speech may be seen as a pledge to cut taxes, which is legal.
John Day, a lawyer in New Mexico, said the plan would indeed be legal. It constituted a promise made to all adult citizens of the US during a campaign, rather than a “payment to individuals to try to get them to vote in a particular way”, he told the Associated Press.
Meanwhile, an election law expert who spoke to the New York Times said Trump’s promise would also be covered by the free-speech protection guaranteed under the First Amendment of the US Constitution.
Source: BBC