The Trump administration is expected to issue the first tariff refunds by around May 11, according to an order filed on Tuesday in the U.S. Court of International Trade, more than two months after the U.S. Supreme Court deemed the sweeping duties illegal.
About 21% of entries subject to the tariffs under the International Emergency Economic Powers Act (IEEPA) have been accepted for removal of duties through a new process known as CAPE, or Consolidated Administration and Processing of Entries, Judge Richard Eaton said in the order.
Eaton, who is overseeing the refund process, said about 3% of IEEPA entries have been liquidated through CAPE and are in the refund stage, which includes issuance of payments by the U.S. Treasury.
The U.S. Supreme Court's Feb.20 ruling that President Donald Trump lacked authority to impose tariffs under IEEPA left unresolved how importers would be repaid, creating uncertainty over the refund process.
About 1.74 million accepted entries had been liquidated and were in the refund process as of April 26, the filing said.
The refund process could cover about $166 billion in duties paid by more than 330,000 importers on roughly 53 million entries, according to court documents.
After the court ruled 6–3 that the sweeping tariffs were illegal, Trump denounced the decision as "terrible" and "totally defective," and responded by imposing a new 10% global tariff.
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