Updated Feb. 12, 2026, 2:25 p.m. ET
It’s been months since President Donald Trump announced there would be a new stimulus check.
What happened?
On Nov. 9, 2026, President Donald Trump said his administration plans to issue a “dividend” of at least $2,000 to most Americans.
It was framed as a reward for what he described as the nation’s economic strength under his leadership.
In a post on his social media platform Truth Social, Trump said the payments would go to all Americans except those with high incomes.
In an interview with NBC prior to the Super Bowl, Trump was asked about the status of the checks.
“We’d make it — I’m looking at it very seriously,” Trump told NBC’s Tom Llamas. “I’m the only one who can do it because I’m taking in hundreds of billions of dollars of money from tariffs.”
Trump, however, did not make a firm commitment to the checks being issued.
“Oh yeah, sure. I can do that,” he said. “I haven’t made the commitment yet, but I may make the commitment.”
When are we getting a $2,000 tariff dividend check?
The issuing of stimulus check rests on a looming Supreme Court decision over the legality of those tariffs.
Trump’s promised $2,000 tariff dividend payment to “middle income people and lower income people” from the “hundreds of millions of dollars” collected in tariff revenues still lacks a formal proposal despite promises from the president that payments would be issued sometime in 2026, before the midterms.
The Supreme Court is expected to issue a ruling soon on whether to strike down all or part of the tariffs and clarify how importers would receive tariff refunds.
CONTRIBUTING: Maria Francis, USA TODAY Network
