President Donald Trump speaks to reporters after stepping off Air Pressure One on September 7, 2025 at Joint Base Andrews, Maryland.
Kevin Dietsch | Getty Photos
The US authorities has already collected tens of billions of {dollars} from President Donald Trump’s “reciprocal tariffs.”
However that cash — and much more — might find yourself being refunded if the Supreme Court docket agrees with decrease courts that most of the levies on imports from different international locations are unlawful.
How a lot might that find yourself being?
Anyplace between $750 billion to a whopping $1 trillion, warned Treasury Secretary Scott Bessent in a declaration filed with the Supreme Court docket final week.
That eye-popping whole might embrace the greater than $72 billion in tariff income collected to date by U.S. Customs and Border Safety enforcement since Trump’s “liberation day” announcement, based on knowledge as of Aug. 24.
It might additionally embrace cash projected to be collected from the at-risk tariffs by subsequent June.
“Unwinding them might trigger important disruption,” Bessent instructed the Supreme Court docket.
Bessent’s declaration was a part of a request by the Trump administration to have the Supreme Court docket shortly rule the tariffs are authorized, and never wait till subsequent summer season, the traditional time-frame for such a call.
The earlier the courtroom guidelines, the much less cash the federal government might be required to refund if a majority of justices discover the tariffs to be unlawful.
Refunding tariffs isn’t an unprecedented scenario for the U.S. authorities. However the quantity of tariffs the Trump administration might be pressured to refund is.
Underneath former President Joe Biden, importers of some Chinese language items have been granted refunds on Part 301 tariffs throughout a restricted interval, based on a 2022 Holland & Knight alert. However these refunds have been comparatively paltry.
Bessent stated he’s “assured” that the Trump administration will get the Supreme Court docket to reverse the decrease courtroom’s rulings.
But when the Supreme Court docket says that refunds are required, “we would must do it,” Bessent instructed NBC Information‘ “Meet the Press” on Sunday. And that may be “horrible,” he added.
Two decrease courts have dominated Trump overstepped his presidential authority when he invoked the Worldwide Emergency Financial Powers Act to justify imposing steep levies on nearly each U.S. buying and selling accomplice.
Final week, the Trump administration requested the Supreme Court docket to reverse these selections — shortly.
“The stakes on this case couldn’t be larger,” Solicitor Common D. John Sauer wrote within the administration’s petition to the excessive courtroom. “To the President and his most senior advisors, these tariffs thus current a stark alternative: With tariffs, we’re a wealthy nation; with out tariffs, we’re a poor nation,” Sauer wrote.
“The President predicts that if ‘the USA have been pressured to pay again the trillions of {dollars} dedicated to us, America might go from power to failure the second such an incorrect choice took impact,’ and ‘the financial penalties can be ruinous, as an alternative of unprecedented success.'”
The Supreme Court docket has not indicated when it’d act on the Trump administration’s request to take the case.
However the truth that the Trump administration didn’t wait till mid-October to ask the excessive courtroom to take the case “at the very least will increase the chances that we might see a call from the Supreme Court docket by the tip of the yr,” stated Ryan Majerus, a accomplice within the worldwide commerce staff at King & Spalding.
Main questions stay over how a refund course of would work for the administration and the businesses hit hardest by the tariffs
Majerus stated it’s doable that importers might be required to file claims themselves to safe the refunds.
Cargo containers stacked aboard a ship on the Jakarta Worldwide Container Terminal in Tanjung Priok Port on Aug. 7, 2025.
Str | Afp | Getty Photos
Commerce specialists are already urging corporations to maintain meticulous information and put together to file refund claims, warning that the method might be messy.
“Documenting import histories and submitting crucial paperwork promptly might be key,” a latest consumer alert from Brownstein Hyatt Farber Schreck stated.
If brokers are required to file for his or her refunds, “the workload for our customs groups would double in a single day and be met with importers very wanting to get these {dollars} again,” Mike Brief, president of world forwarding at C.H. Robinson, just lately instructed CNBC.
The New York Occasions’ DealBook publication reported that some importers are being approached about promoting their rights to potential refunds to third-party corporations at pennies on the greenback.
Patrons of these rights are successfully betting that the Supreme Court docket will overturn Trump’s tariffs, and provides them a good-looking return on these wagers.
The White Home didn’t instantly reply to CNBC’s request for remark.
