By Brooke Thomson
President & CEO

If you like cliffhangers, the ongoing saga of US import tariffs has more twists and turns than an episode of Stranger Things.

When we last left our story, the United States Supreme Court had just struck down the sweeping tariffs imposed by the Trump Administration last year under the International Emergency Economic Powers Act (IEEPA).  The court did not weigh in on whether or how the federal government should refund the $166 billion collected under the invalidated emergency duties.

A wave of U.S. businesses began to file lawsuits in the hopes of getting their money back. The Trump administration said initially it could take the government more than four million hours to manually process all of the refund requests.

But wait, before the ink was dry on the Supreme Court decision, the president imposed a 10% tariff on all imports under Section 122 of the Trade Act of 1974, which allows the president to impose temporary import duties (up to 15% for 150 days) to address “large and serious” balance-of-payments deficits. The president has said he would raise it to 15%, the maximum allowed but has yet to do so.

Meanwhile, Massachusetts and 24 other states have already challenged the new tariffs. The lawsuit contends that the Trump Administration’s actions exceed its statutory authority, upend constitutional separation of powers, and violate the Administrative Procedure Act.

Then, on March 13, U.S. Trade Representative Jamieson Greer said the administration will investigate 16 economies — including the European Union — over whether their governments are subsidizing excessive factory capacity in a way that disadvantages U.S. manufacturing. The investigation under Section 301 of the Trade Act of 1974, will also cover China, South Korea, and Japan, Greer said.

Are you following all this?

Let’s get back to potential IEEPA tariff refunds.

On March 4, the US Court of International Trade (CIT) ordered U.S. Customs and Border Protection (CBP) to refund the so-called Liberation Day tariffs. Judge Richard Eaton ordered that all importers of record—potentially over 330,000 businesses—are entitled to refunds, not just those who filed lawsuits, making this a “nationwide refund.”

President Trump has made clear he opposes returning any tariff money, which he has long heralded as a fiscal boon for Washington. The President has maintained that it could take years to complete the legal wrangling over what the governments owes, suggesting that he may try to thwart refunds in other ways, too.

Yet the administration has nevertheless started taking the technical steps that would enable businesses to collect refunds.

Brandon Lord, a top official at U.S. Customs and Border Protection, which oversees tariff collections, said that work was well underway on a new system that would process refund requests in bulk. Previously, Mr. Lord had told the court that such a system could be ready by mid-April, and that it would significantly cut down on its original projection that it would take four million hours to return tariff money.

Dan Anthony, the executive director of We Pay the Tariffs, a coalition of small businesses that have opposed Mr. Trump’s policies, told The New York Times that the developments offered mixed signals for companies that may be in dire financial straits.

On one hand, he said, the court made clear that it expected refunds quickly. But on the other, he said, there is no way to tell how long it will take in practice for money to reach those that paid it.

Associated Industries of Massachusetts is working to keep members informed about the tariff refund process. Please keep us informed as well. Was your company financially harmed by the IEEPA tariffs? Do you plan to seek a refund? Have you filed suit to obtain a refund?

Please send your confidential email to Stephanie Swanson, Executive Vice President and Executive Director of the AIM International Business Council, sswanson@aimnet.org.