President Donald Trump used a rare, nationally televised address this week to defend his economic and immigration record, touting sweeping tariffs and a crackdown on unauthorized migration as the cornerstones of what he called a looming “economic boom.” The speech, carried live by major networks, blended policy talking points with campaign-style rhetoric and drew immediate pushback from Democrats and fact-checkers, who challenged several of the president’s claims. As the White House seeks to shore up public support amid concerns about prices and border security, Trump framed tariffs and tight immigration controls as central to restoring American prosperity.

Image Illustration. Photo by Waqar Hussain on Unsplash

Tariffs at the center of Trump’s economic argument

From the opening minutes of his address, Trump highlighted tariffs as proof that his administration is forcing trading partners to “play fair” and generating new revenue for the U.S. government. The Department of Homeland Security has reported that U.S. Customs and Border Protection (CBP) collected more than $106 billion in customs revenue since Trump first took office, including about $81.5 billion tied specifically to his tariff actions. Supporters cite these figures as evidence that tariffs have strengthened U.S. leverage abroad and raised money that can be used for domestic priorities.

But economists across the political spectrum emphasize that tariffs function largely as a tax on imports that is typically paid by U.S. importers and, over time, passed on to consumers through higher prices. The nonpartisan Peterson Institute for International Economics has estimated that the Trump-era tariffs on Chinese goods alone raised average U.S. consumer costs and reduced real income, in part by making intermediate goods more expensive for domestic manufacturers. Independent analyses from the Congressional Budget Office and academic researchers have similarly concluded that most of the tariff burden has fallen on U.S. firms and households rather than foreign exporters.

Revenue gains vs. consumer costs

The president pointed to rising customs receipts as evidence that his trade strategy is working. CBP figures show that duties and related fees surged during his earlier term in office, with the agency collecting roughly $74.5 billion in duties, taxes and fees in fiscal year 2019, up from about $40.1 billion the year before. CBP attributed a significant share of that increase to new tariffs on steel, aluminum and hundreds of billions of dollars’ worth of Chinese imports.

However, consumer and business groups note that those same policies have fueled higher costs across sectors, from manufacturing and agriculture to retail. A 2019 analysis by the Federal Reserve Bank of New York found that U.S. tariffs and retaliatory measures reduced U.S. real income by roughly $1.4 billion per month, once higher import prices and losses to exporters were factored in. Those trade-offs received little emphasis in Trump’s address, even as voters consistently rank the cost of living as a top concern in national polls.

Immigration crackdown framed as answer to border ‘crisis’

Turning from trade to immigration, Trump again described the southern border as the site of a years-long emergency and credited his policies for dramatically reducing illegal crossings. He cited a steep drop in apprehensions in the past year, pointing to data showing that southwest border apprehensions fell to their lowest level in half a century in fiscal 2025 after a sustained period of record arrivals under the previous administration. A recent fact sheet from the House Homeland Security Committee highlights that U.S. Border Patrol apprehensions between ports of entry at the southwest border dropped to 237,538 in fiscal 2025, the lowest total since 1970, down from about 1.6 million in fiscal 2021.

Trump has long argued that stricter enforcement, expanded border barriers and tougher asylum policies are necessary to deter irregular migration and drug trafficking. During his first term, CBP reported 851,508 apprehensions between ports of entry on the southwest border in fiscal 2019, a 115 percent increase over the previous year and the highest annual total in 12 years. The surge, driven largely by families and unaccompanied minors from Central America, fueled his push for new deterrence policies and a border wall system along key stretches of the U.S.-Mexico boundary.

Fact-checking Trump’s border claims

Immigration experts caution that headline apprehension numbers reflect a complex mix of factors, including conditions in migrants’ home countries, regional enforcement by Mexico and Central American governments, and U.S. policy changes. The nonpartisan Pew Research Center notes that while apprehensions spiked in fiscal 2019, they remained below levels seen in the early 2000s and involved a very different profile of migrants—more families seeking asylum and fewer single adults from Mexico. That shift has strained an enforcement system designed primarily for detaining and quickly returning single adults, not processing asylum claims or caring for children.

At the same time, the administration’s own statistics show that enforcement tools have at times diverted personnel and resources away from traditional patrol duties. CBP leadership has acknowledged that during the 2019 surge, Border Patrol agents spent up to half their time on humanitarian processing rather than frontline enforcement, and that the agency had more than 4,900 migrant rescues and periods when nearly 20,000 people were in custody on a single day. Critics argue that such pressures underscore the limits of an enforcement-first approach without broader reforms to asylum and legal immigration pathways.

Linking immigration to economic concerns

In the address, Trump also tied immigration more explicitly to housing and wage pressures, echoing recent administration claims that unauthorized migrants are driving up rents and home prices. A separate report from The Washington Post details how senior Trump officials have increasingly blamed immigration for high housing costs, arguing that deportations and tighter controls will ease pressure on the market. Housing economists, however, point to long-term underbuilding, restrictive zoning and rising construction costs as the primary drivers of the affordability crisis.

Academic studies have generally found that immigration has modest effects on average wages and employment for U.S.-born workers, with some localized impacts for earlier immigrant cohorts and workers without high school degrees. Research summarized by the National Academies of Sciences, Engineering, and Medicine concludes that immigration has overall positive long-run effects on economic growth and innovation, while slightly reducing wages for some low-skilled native workers and boosting returns for high-skilled workers and capital owners. Those nuances rarely surfaced in Trump’s speech, which painted a starker picture of migrants as a burden on public services and a threat to safety and affordability.

Politics of a prime-time pitch

The address came as Trump’s approval ratings on the economy and immigration have softened, and as both parties maneuver ahead of the next election cycle. According to reporting from The Washington Post, the White House pushed for prime-time airtime in part to counter a perception that key campaign promises on growth and border security remain unfulfilled. Democrats criticized the networks for what they described as offering a free campaign rally, while the administration framed the speech as an official update on national priorities.

The only concrete new initiative unveiled in the address was a proposed “warrior dividend” — a one-time $1,776 payment to more than 1.4 million U.S. service members — which Trump linked to the country’s approaching 250th anniversary. The speech otherwise largely repackaged existing talking points on tariffs, crime and border enforcement, underscoring how central those themes remain to his political brand.

A nation still searching for answers on trade and migration

Trump’s latest address made clear that tariffs and hard-line immigration policies will continue to anchor his vision for the country’s economic and national security agenda. Yet the data he cites, and the evidence marshaled by independent researchers, tell a more complicated story — one in which revenue gains from tariffs coexist with higher consumer costs, and sharp swings in migration numbers reflect far more than any single policy lever.

As voters weigh competing claims about who benefits from tariffs, how secure the border truly is and what drives the cost of living in their communities, the debate over Trump’s record is likely to intensify. With both parties preparing for a new election cycle and global economic and migration pressures showing no sign of abating, the questions raised in this week’s prime-time pitch — about who pays, who gains and who gets to come to the United States — are poised to remain at the center of American politics.