(MENAFN- Live Mint) US President Donald Trump said on Thursday that he's considering rebate checks of $1,000-$2,000 from tariff revenue.

He reportedly proposed to share some of the hundreds of billions of dollars the federal government has collected since he imposed steep levies on imports from foreign nations in April.

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“We'll pay back debt. But we also might make a distribution to the people, almost like a dividend to the people of America,” Trump told One America News on Thursday.

When asked how much that be, Trump said, "Maybe 1,000-$2,000."

The US President also estimated that tariffs are going to be worth“over a trillion dollars a year.”

Trump's proposal comes as the Supreme Court is slated to hear arguments in a case next month that will decide whether the president has the power to impose such sweeping global tariffs.

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“They're [tariffs] just starting to kick in,” Trump was quoted as saying in an interview with One America News Network,“but ultimately, your tariffs are going to be over a trillion dollars a year.”

What does he plan to do with the money?

“Number one, we're paying down debt,” Trump said, adding that“because people have allowed the debt to go crazy.”

The president argued that the $37 trillion national debt is actually“very little, relatively speaking” because the government is taking in unprecedented sums of money from tariffs.

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“With that being said, we'll pay back debt, but we also might make a distribution to the people,” Trump continued.

Trump described his plan as“a dividend to the people of America.”

“We're thinking maybe $1,000 to $2,000 - it would be great,” the president said of the size of the checks Americans might get.

Any disbursement from the federal government would require congressional approval.

Fox Business cited data from the Treasury Departmen to claim that the federal government has raked in about $214.9 billion in revenues from tariffs this year.

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The $31.3 billion in tariff revenue collected in September, however, was $73 million less than the August record, New York Post reported.

In August, the US Court of Appeals for the Federal Circuit ruled that most of the president's tariffs were not covered by an emergency powers law - a decision that followed two lower courts finding that most of the levies imposed on US trading partners were illegal.

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