“With the help of tariffs, we have cut the federal budget deficit by a staggering 27 percent in a single year.”

The federal budget deficit fell just 2.3% in fiscal year 2025, from $1.82 trillion to $1.78 trillion, according to Treasury data. That is roughly one-twelfth of the 27% cut Trump claimed in his Wall Street Journal op-ed.

The 27% figure comes from a non-standard, hand-picked window: the White House compared the cumulative deficit from February to November 2025 against the same calendar months in 2024. Budget analysts, including the CBO, the Bipartisan Policy Center and the Peterson Foundation, track deficits by fiscal year, not cherry-picked calendar stretches. Worse for the claim, the deficit is projected to go UP, not down. The Congressional Budget Office projects the FY2026 deficit will reach close to $1.9 trillion, higher than FY2025, and about $140 billion higher than the CBO projected for FY2026 in January 2025, before any of Trump's policies took effect. Tariff revenue is real (customs duties were up $90 billion in the first four months of FY2026) but it has not come close to offsetting the cost of Trump's tax and spending policies.