The Trump administration has returned $100 billion from revenue it gleaned from tariffs the Supreme Court tossed out in February, months after the high court ruled the tariffs lacked a proper legal basis. The funds were sent to the Treasury Department for disbursement, according to a court filing this week in the U.S. Court of International Trade, marking a refund of over half of the revenue collected in tariffs that the Supreme Court struck down earlier this year. Nearly $29 billion in possible refunds is still under review by authorities, while another $1.6 billion in potential reimbursements is backlogged because importers have not yet supplied their banking details.Customs and Border Protection is processing the refunds through its new “CAPE” portal, where around 300,000 companies can apply for up to $175 billion in reimbursements for tariffs they paid. CAPE has received 252,496 tariff refund declarations covering more than 25 million import entries as of July 31, CBP official Brandon Lord said in Tuesday’s court filing.
The development was triggered by the Supreme Court ruling that determined Trump did not use the proper legal mechanism to issue his historic “Liberation Day” tariffs last year. The president sought to invoke the International Emergency Economic Powers Act as the basis for the tariffs, but the court ruled that the law did not provide him legal grounds to enact the levy. Following the decision, Trump promptly invoked several other laws to issue more tariffs. “Tariffs have been incredible. We’ve taken in hundreds of billions of dollars,” Trump said Tuesday in a Fox News interview. “Supreme Court gave us a little shot, but we’re allowed to do it in a different manner.”Still, the administration has been forced to extend refunds to businesses that paid tariff duties to Washington when the IEEPA levy was in effect, because the court did not issue a caveat to the ruling allowing the United States to keep revenue from tariffs already collected.DATA CENTERS GENERATE BILLIONS. SO WHY IS YOUR TAX BILL GOING UP?“All they had to do was add one sentence, just one sentence, and that’s you don’t have to pay anything taken in thus far back, but because they didn’t add … we have to pay back $165 billion,” Trump said in April. “So, I’m not happy with the Supreme Court, I’ll be honest with you. I will tell you that because I’m looking to make this country strong, the Supreme Court could have helped us.” Major companies across the U.S. have reported receiving tariff refunds, including Amazon, which said last week it received a $600 million reimbursement. Apple has also reported it received a $2.2 billion refund.
