‘IT’S MIDNIGHT!!!’ Trump Touts ‘BILLIONS OF DOLLARS’ Collected as Global Tariff Blitz Kicks In

Photo by Yuri Gripas/Abaca/Sipa USA(Sipa via AP Images)

President Donald Trump boasted that “BILLIONS OF DOLLARS” are now pouring into U.S. coffers as a sweeping new round of tariffs came into effect against more than 90 countries.

At 11:58 p.m. ET on Wednesday, the president took to Truth Social to post in all-caps:

IT’S MIDNIGHT!!! BILLIONS OF DOLLARS IN TARIFFS ARE NOW FLOWING INTO THE UNITED STATES OF AMERICA!

As midnight passed, Customs and Border Protection began collecting on the new tariffs.

After delaying the rollout for a week, the White House pushed through new import taxes ranging from 10 to 50 percent. Trump has cast the levies as a patriotic correction to decades of trade “abuse” by foreign governments.

An hour earlier, Trump blasted countries that had “TAKEN ADVANTAGE” of the U.S. and said they would now be subject to “RECIPROCAL TARIFFS” and any court that would step in clearly wanted to “SEE OUR COUNTRY FAIL”:

RECIPROCAL TARIFFS TAKE EFFECT AT MIDNIGHT TONIGHT! BILLIONS OF DOLLARS, LARGELY FROM COUNTRIES THAT HAVE TAKEN ADVANTAGE OF THE UNITED STATES FOR MANY YEARS, LAUGHING ALL THE WAY, WILL START FLOWING INTO THE USA. THE ONLY THING THAT CAN STOP AMERICA’S GREATNESS WOULD BE A RADICAL LEFT COURT THAT WANTS TO SEE OUR COUNTRY FAIL!

Revenue figures suggest the strategy has at least delivered in dollar terms: $30 billion collected last month alone, with $100 billion since April, up more than threefold from the same period last year, according to the Treasury. But economists warn of consequences for U.S. consumers and markets.

Still looming is the Aug. 12 deadline to strike a trade agreement with China. Failure could trigger threatened tariffs as high as 245 percent.