CORRIN, Neb. — A local man who has said for two years that foreign countries pay the nation’s tariffs has begun leaving an 18 percent tip on them, according to receipts he shared Wednesday, explaining that he wanted to show his appreciation “to China, for paying.”
“I don’t pay the tariffs. China pays the tariffs. I just hand the money to the guy at the register so it gets to China faster,” said Dwight Ankeny, 62, a retired feed-store manager, standing in the parking lot of a farm-supply store where he had just paid $1,140 more for a riding mower than its price two summers ago. “And I’ll be honest, they’ve been very good about it. So I tip.”
Tariffs are paid to U.S. Customs and Border Protection by the businesses that import the goods. A study published in January by the Kiel Institute for the World Economy, which examined more than 25 million shipments, estimated that foreign exporters absorbed about 4 percent of the cost of recent U.S. tariffs and that the remaining 96 percent was passed on to American buyers.
Ankeny said he was aware of the study and considered it “a foreign study.” Asked who had handed over the $1,140 on Wednesday, he said he had, “on China’s behalf.” Asked where the money had come from, he said his checking account, which he described as “basically a pass-through.” Asked whether China had ever reimbursed him, he said, “Not yet,” and then, “That’s the beauty of it.”
Receipts reviewed by the Reporter show that Ankeny has paid tariff-inflated prices on a mower, a chest freezer, two sets of tires, a space heater, a box of Christmas lights purchased in August “to beat the next round,” and 14 bags of a specific brand of imported licorice. On each receipt, in the blank line normally reserved for tips at restaurants, Ankeny has written the amount of the estimated tariff, multiplied it by 0.18, and added it to his total, at a cumulative cost of $412.60 since March. He has also begun writing “THANK YOU CHINA” on the memo line of checks to his electric cooperative, which does not import anything, “just to keep the relationship strong.” The Center for Measured Outcomes calculated that, at his current rate, Ankeny will have personally covered the tariffs on roughly 0.0000004 percent of last fiscal year’s imports by 2031, a figure he described as “their problem.”
After the Supreme Court struck down tariffs imposed under the International Emergency Economic Powers Act in February, the federal government paid out roughly $158 billion in refunds during the fiscal year that ended Sept. 30, according to Treasury data. The refunds go to the importer of record, the business that paid the duty at the border. Ankeny said that he was expecting a refund as well, “from China,” and that he had checked his mailbox every day since February. Asked what he would do with the money, he said he would “probably give it back to them, as a thank-you,” and then tip on that.
Dr. Chad Brickhouse, a senior fellow at the Institute for Common Sense, said Ankeny’s reasoning was sound. “If the other guy pays, you don’t feel it. If you don’t feel it, the other guy is paying,” Brickhouse said by phone from a car wash. “It’s just common sense. The money leaves your hand, but the loss belongs to China.”
Ankeny’s wife, Sharon, said the household budget had been “tighter than usual” this year but that she supported her husband’s position. She said she had started a jar on the kitchen counter labeled “CHINA,” into which the couple deposits $20 every Friday, and that she had no idea what happens to it after that, because her husband empties it.
Asked where the money in the jar goes, Ankeny said, “To the register,” and then, after a moment, “where it goes to China.”