The Trump administration said refunds of tariffs struck down by the US supreme court “will take time”, according to court documents filed by the Department of Justice.
Businesses including FedEx have lined up to demand reimbursement for US tariffs they have paid but that the court last week deemed were imposed illegally, prompting heavy criticism from Donald Trump.
The justice department did not say it plans to ask the supreme court to rehear the case, despite Trump’s comments earlier on Friday. Claiming that refunds could ultimately cost hundreds of billions of dollars, the president wrote: “I am sure that the supreme court did not have this in mind!”
“It doesn’t make sense that Countries and Companies that took advantage of us for decades, receiving Billions and Billions of Dollars that they should not have been allowed to receive, would now be entitled to an undeserved ‘windfall,’ the likes of which the World has never seen before, as a result of this highly disappointing, to say the least, ruling,” Trump posted on Truth Social.
“Is a Rehearing or Readjudication of this case possible???”
Since the supreme court struck down many of the tariffs last week, dozens of companies have rushed to court seeking refunds, joining hundreds that had already filed suits in anticipation of the ruling.
The decision amounts to a sharp rebuke, toppling a key pillar of Trump’s aggressive economic agenda. It also infuriated the president, who lambasted the court and vowed to impose new tariffs in a “much more powerful and obnoxious way” on countries that fail to comply with his wishes.
The supreme court ruled that a 1977 law designed to address national emergencies did not provide the legal justification for most of the administration’s tariffs on countries around the world.
As Trump and his officials scrambled to identify legal mechanisms they could use to enforce his tariffs, they imposed a sweeping, but temporary, 10% US tariff on imports from much of the world earlier this week.
Under section 122 of the Trade Act of 1974, this new duty can be imposed for 150 days.
