Blitz Bureau
NEW DELHI: US President Donald Trump announced a special one-time “Warrior Dividend” payment for members of the American military, saying more than 1.45 million service personnel would receive $1,776 cheques before Christmas as part of what he described as a broader economic and national security reset.
“Tonight I am also proud to announce that more than 1,450,000 military service members will receive a special — we call Warrior Dividend — before Christmas,” Trump said in his address to the nation on December 17. “We are sending every soldier $1,776. And the cheques are already on the way.”
Trump said the payment was being issued “in honour of our nation’s founding in 1776,” linking the dividend to the upcoming 250th anniversary of the Declaration of Independence. He credited tariff revenues and recently passed legislation for making the payments possible. “We made a lot more money than anybody thought because of tariffs, and the bill helped us along,” he said, adding, “Nobody deserves it more than our military”.
He said the US armed forces were seeing “record enlistment,” a sharp turnaround from what he described as “among the worst recruitment numbers in our military’s history” last year. The President framed the dividend as part of a wider effort to rebuild American strength at home and abroad, arguing that his administration had restored the military to unmatched global dominance.
Trump also tied the dividend to his broader economic narrative, asserting that tariffs, private-sector job growth and rising investment had strengthened the US economy sufficiently to fund direct payments without additional taxation.