Dem
47
GOP
53
The Supreme Court has ruled that most of the tariffs Donald Trump imposed were illegal. Consequently, 2,000 companies that paid them want their money back and have sued to get it. The Chamber of Commerce has called for a swift return of the $130 billion taken unlawfully by the federal government. The administration has tried to slow-walk the return of the funds but on Monday, an appeals court rejected the administration's attempt to delay proceedings until June.
Some lawyers involved in the cases say that unless there are clear rules about who gets a refund and how to apply for it, there could be hundreds of thousands of cases, totally suffocating the court system. Trump might not actually have a problem with that. One official at a trade group said there will be a slugfest.
Democrats are already hitting Trump on the delays. Sen. Jeanne Shaheen (D-NH), ranking member of the Senate Foreign Relations Committee, sees a campaign issue here. She said: "This deliberate effort to withhold Americans' hard-earned dollars is unacceptable." She has introduced legislation to force the administration to return the money to companies promptly and for companies to compensate their customers, possibly by lowering prices for some time until the refund is used up.
Under customs law, importers have 314 days to challenge a tariff payment. If the deadline passes without a challenge, their chances of recovery drop precipitously. So, many companies are making sure the paperwork is filed on time, which will gum up the works with paper.
The claimants who have the best chance are large firms that do a lot of importing or act on behalf of big importers, like Walmart and DHL. All of these have in-house lawyers who can at least start the ball rolling. By contrast, many small businesses are coming to the conclusion that hiring a lawyer may cost more than the tariffs they paid so the win is merely on paper and they will not get any money back.
Will this have a political impact? Maybe some. We can imagine that people who were forced to pay the government some money that was later to have been declared illegal and then have the government not return it might not be happy campers. Midterm elections tend to sort the happy campers from the unhappy campers. (V)