Companies aren't just lining up for refunds, they're stampeding. After the Supreme Court last week invalidated much of President Trump's global tariffs regimen, at least 1,800 firms have sued to claw back duties paid, part of an estimated $130 billion collected in just 10 months. The company list includes Costco, Goodyear, Barnes & Noble, FedEx, and hundreds more, with one trade lawyer likening the coming "deluge" of cases to asbestos litigation, except compressed into a single burst, per the Wall Street Journal. Roughly 301,000 importers were hit by the now-defunct tariffs, suggesting that the pool of potential claimants is enormous.
All of it lands at the Court of International Trade in New York, which has frozen related cases while it sorts out next steps and plans for a broader refund process. The Trump administration has sent mixed messages: Government lawyers previously told courts companies could be "made whole" if the tariffs were deemed illegal in the end, but Trump has since predicted "five years" of courtroom battles, while Treasury Secretary Scott Bessent says the White House will follow whatever the courts order.
Some importers filed "belt-and-suspenders" lawsuits before the SCOTUS ruling; others, unable to afford legal fees, are waiting and hoping customs simply sends the money back. However, attorney Richard Mojica has been telling clients they should assume that customs "is not going to make it easy," per the New York Times. And what about the possibility of consumers receiving a refund? "There is an infinitesimal chance that that could happen," Bankrate analyst Stephen Kates tells USA Today. "Consumers have no legal claim to a refund, because they weren't the importers. They just bought the products."
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