US midterms: Trump's 5,000-dollar-per-adult pledge
US President Donald Trump has promised to pay every adult US citizen 5,000 dollars (around 4,300 euros) if the Republicans win the mid-term elections in November. "If the Republicans win, you win with us and get 5,000 dollars," he said at the Republican Party Convention in Dallas. Europe's press asks how exactly the "Trump dividend" is to be financed.
A rubber cheque
Hospodářské noviny describes what 5,000 dollars for every US adult would mean if the Republicans were to win the election:
“This would cause the US federal government's already enormous budget deficit to jump by two-thirds, bringing it close to ten percent of GDP - levels last seen during the Covid years and the economic crisis of 2009. ... The costs would, of course, be financed by debt. Trump speaks of dividends and revenue from tariffs, but even assuming the government were actually able to collect these, they would not be sufficient to cover such a sum.”
Hardly a gift
Alfa does the maths:
“This move, like so many others, amounts to bribing voters with their own money. ... Since the start of Trump's second term, consumer prices in the US have risen noticeably. ... The average annual cost of a basket of staple goods for US consumers has risen by around 4,000 since early 2025, when Trump returned to the White House. The surge in petrol prices alone could mean several hundred dollars in additional costs per year for the average consumer, depending on the distance travelled and the type of vehicle. This means that Trump would not, for example, be giving every American 5,000 dollars, but merely making good on the losses inflicted on every American's pocket by his botched administration – from trade wars to the actual war in Iran.”
Democracy hitting rock bottom
El País is outraged:
“All the members of the House of Representatives and a third of the senators will be elected but Trump is acting as if this vote were all about him. ... Such an extravagant campaign harms the candidates and democracy and shows a lack of respect for the public – as if they were being summoned not to the ballot box but to the annual general meeting of a company run by an authoritarian and greedy megalomaniac. ... Even if nobody believes him: the very idea of buying entire elections – presumably through public debt and thus ultimately at the taxpayers' expense – reveals how Trumpism is taking democracy to an all-time low.”
All about cash in other countries too
NZZ comments:
“The scale and brazenness of this vote-buying scheme is probably unprecedented. ... But it lays bare a phenomenon that is becoming routine in democracies around the world. Buying votes is the new way of persuading voters. Policies are only considered acceptable nowadays if the individual stands to gain more cash immediately, which, given the modest growth rates in industrialised nations, places an excessive burden on every state. ... No one can opt out of this race any longer. And anyone who dares to do so in an attempt to right the wrongs of past spending sprees must pay a heavy price at the ballot box. This is how the right-wing opposition parties in countries like France and Germany have the governments over a barrel.”