Topline
A group of state treasurers and fiscal leaders pushed President Donald Trump in a letter to make the tariff refund process more transparent, as the Trump administration starts paying back money to importers after the Supreme Court declared the tariffs to be unlawful—but consumers who paid higher prices still largely can’t get their money back.
President Donald Trump speaks to journalists on the South Lawn of the White House on May 8.
AFP via Getty Images
Key Facts
A group of Democratic state treasurers, controllers and auditors from California, Colorado, Illinois, Minnesota, Maryland, Nevada, Oregon and Vermont sent a letter to Trump, which expressed “grave concerns” about the tariff refund process and called for the process to be carried out “with full transparency and fairness.”
The Trump administration has established a portal for importers to apply for tariff refunds—after being forced to do so in court—resulting in tariff refunds starting to hit companies’ accounts last week, with importers reporting the process is running largely smoothly.
While importers are getting their money back, consumers who had the tariff costs passed onto them in the form of higher prices have had little recourse—it’s up to the companies to voluntarily give customers their money back, though some consumers are also filing class action lawsuits to force paybacks.
The state officials said they were concerned as a result that the tariff refund process “does not now nor will adequately reflect the actual distribution of costs,” because it does not account for pass-through costs to the consumer.
The letter calls on the Trump administration to publicly report every importer that has requested and received a tariff refund, and for the government to extend its reimbursement process “to the American households and consumers who paid higher prices.”
The White House has not yet responded to a request for comment on the letter, but Trump railed against the tariff refunds in a Truth Social post Sunday night, saying the fact the government has to pay back the money is “hardly believable” and asking why the Supreme Court didn’t “[solve] that situation with a ‘tiny’ sentence” saying the ruling didn’t apply to tariffs that had already been paid.
Crucial Quote
“King Donald tried to raise taxes on middle class families, raising prices and making life less affordable. And now that the Supreme Court stopped his illegal tax scheme, he won’t refund the billions of dollars to working families or small businesses,” Illinois Treasurer Mike Frerichs said in a statement to Forbes.
Big Number
$35.5 billion. That’s the approximate amount the Trump administration has already provided in refunds as of Monday morning, the government reported in a court filing Tuesday, which includes interest. That’s still only a small fraction of the approximately $166 billion the government has said is eligible to be refunded in total, which excludes interest.
Will Consumers Get Their Money Back?
As it stands now, consumers have few options when it comes to clawing back money they paid because businesses raised their prices due to tariffs. Very few companies have so far said they will pay consumers back for the money they paid—though a few have, most notably Cards Against Humanity, FedEx and UPS. Other companies have not been willing to pass any tariff refund costs on to consumers in the form of direct payments, prompting a growing number of class action lawsuits arguing companies should be forced to pay customers who paid higher prices. Lawsuits have so far been filed against companies including Costco, Nike, Nintendo and IKEA. All are still pending and could take years to play out, but could result in consumers being able to get some money back if plaintiffs are successful.
Key Background
The Supreme Court ruled 6-3 to strike down Trump’s tariffs imposed under the International Emergency Economic Powers Act, determining the president did not have authority under that law to impose them and they were never lawful. The ruling dismantled the president’s signature economic policy, as he had imposed sweeping tariffs of between 10% and 50% on nearly all countries. Trump has repeatedly railed against the ruling, and replaced the IEEPA tariffs with 10% global tariffs under a different legal authority. Those tariffs were also recently declared unlawful in court, though they still remain in place, and an appeals court ruled Tuesday to keep the new tariffs in place while the case gets appealed.