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Donald Trump’s administration has paid out about $100bn in tariff refunds since the US Supreme Court struck down its use of emergency powers to levy duties on its trading partners earlier this year.
The sum, which is 60 per cent of the $165bn collected from the president’s “liberation day” tariffs, was reported by US customs officials to judges at the US Court of International Trade on Tuesday.
The judges in the lower court ordered US Customs and Border Protection to process the refunds after the Supreme Court in February barred the use of emergency economic powers to impose steep levies, significantly curtailing the president’s expansive use of executive authority.
The rapid pace at which refunds have been issued is the latest twist in Trump’s tumultuous trade war in which he has deployed tariffs on an unprecedented scale as part of sweeping efforts to reshape America’s relationship with the global economy.
Following the top court’s ruling, US officials and Trump warned that the refunds would depend on further litigation.
“This could take years to litigate and to get to the payouts,” said Treasury secretary Scott Bessent in February. “And if there is a payout, it looks like it’s just going to be the ultimate corporate welfare.”
Trump lashed out at the Supreme Court as recently as last month, posting on Truth Social that the justices had cost the US “TRILLIONS AND TRILLIONS OF DOLLARS” with their decision to throw out his duties.
But the speed at which the money has been refunded has surprised trade lawyers and analysts. “The administration is ploughing through the refunds,” said Ted Murphy, a trade lawyer at Sidley Austin in Washington.
CBP said in its court filing on Tuesday that more than $128bn had been “accepted for processing”, signalling that more refunds are imminent.
“I personally have been very pleasantly surprised by how fast the government has moved on this,” said Walker Livingston, an analyst following the refunds process through the courts with Capstone, a consultancy.
However, US lawmakers complain that the money is often handed back to large companies and rarely makes its way back into the hands of the consumers or small businesses who had the tariff charges passed on to them.
“Trump is sending the ‘refunds’ to the companies, not working people,” said Greg Casar, the progressive Democratic Congress member for Texas. “Every single cent of these refunds should go back to American consumers.”
Although CBP was ordered by a court to set up a new system to refund levies after the Supreme Court ruling, only the “importer of record” can use its website to register a claim.
This excludes small businesses that did not directly import products themselves but in effect paid the tariffs either through higher costs or itemised surcharges.
Other small businesses have complained that they are unaware of how to reclaim the duties they have paid or do not have the capacity to do so.
Despite being forced to return billions to US importers, the administration is trying to rebuild Trump’s tariff wall with a new series of levies.
Last week, it began using separate legislation as a basis for new duties of between 10 and 12.5 per cent on more than 60 economies.
There are already at least three separate legal challenges to the latest suite of duties, however, including from the lawyers who successfully challenged the “liberation day” tariffs in the Supreme Court.
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