Supreme Court voids Trump tariffs, US refunds $100 billion amid new duties lawsuits

Perspective Analysis

The US Customs and Border Protection filing placed before the Court of International Trade on August 5 showed that the Trump administration had already disbursed roughly $100 billion in refunds to importers who paid duties under tariffs the Supreme Court invalidated in February. Those duties had generated about $166 billion in total revenue before the ruling. The court had held by a 6-3 margin that the president exceeded authority granted under the 1977 International Emergency Economic Powers Act when he invoked it to impose broad reciprocal tariffs and fentanyl-related duties on Canada, Mexico and China. The refunds include interest and cover more than 53 million shipments from over 330,000 importers.

The administration has moved to replace the struck-down measures with new levies of between 10 and 12.5 percent on imports from more than 80 countries, including Canada, China and the European Union. Officials justify the new duties by citing insufficient action by trading partners against forced labor in supply chains. Twenty-five states, led by New York Attorney General Letitia James, have sued in the same trade court, arguing that the forced-labor rationale is a pretext for restoring the earlier tariff structure. The complaint lists Arizona, California, Colorado, Connecticut, Delaware, Hawaii, Illinois, Kentucky, Massachusetts, Maryland, Maine, Michigan, Minnesota, Nevada, New Jersey, New Mexico, North Carolina, Oregon, Pennsylvania, Rhode Island, Virginia, Vermont, Washington and Wisconsin as co-plaintiffs. A CBP spokesperson told Newsweek that the agency is aware of the suits and that the new duties target countries lacking effective bans on forced-labor goods.

Processing of the refunds has advanced faster than earlier estimates suggested. Treasury Secretary Scott Bessent had warned in February that the process could stretch over weeks, months or years. Instead, more than $128 billion in potential refunds has been accepted for processing, and the administration has already paid out the $100 billion figure cited in the filing. International trade expert Kathleen Claussen noted that not every eligible importer has applied, and some companies that paid the duties have since gone out of business. Greg Husisian of Foley & Lardner observed that electronic validation through the Automated Commercial Environment system has allowed Customs to move payments more quickly than anticipated. Amazon alone received about $600 million during the second quarter, according to its finance chief, and stated that portions would support lower prices while others would be passed back where specific charges applied.

The original tariffs, often described by the administration as part of a “Liberation Day” policy, were challenged immediately after they took effect. The Supreme Court majority opinion, written by Chief Justice John Roberts, concluded that Congress had not authorized the president to impose sweeping tariffs under the emergency-powers statute. Justice Brett Kavanaugh dissented, warning that the decision would require the government to return billions already collected. The ruling left intact narrower duties on steel, automobiles and copper imposed under the 1962 Trade Expansion Act. Following the decision, the Court of International Trade in March ordered that affected companies receive refunds. A temporary 10 percent universal tariff was put in place and expired at the end of July, just before the new forced-labor duties took effect.

Coverage of these developments shows the same sequence of events drawn from the same primary filings. Newsweek places the refund announcement alongside the 25-state lawsuit and quotes both the states’ complaint and administration defenses. Al Jazeera and the BBC report the $100 billion figure and note that it represents about 60 percent of the original collections, adding details on remaining unpaid amounts still under review. Open The Magazine supplies importer-oriented specifics, including the number of refund declarations submitted—more than 252,000 by July 31, with 178,000 validated—and the role of the Consolidated Administration and Processing of Entries platform. The Lithuanian outlet 15min.lt, drawing from Baltic News Service copy, registers only the dollar total and its share of the $166 billion collected.

A reader limited to any single national frame would miss elements that appear once the filings are read together. Newsweek alone supplies the names of the 25 plaintiff states and the direct quote from Attorney General James calling the new tariffs an attempt to “illegally raise taxes on families and businesses.” It also records expert skepticism that a rushed investigation into forced labor across dozens of countries could produce consistent results, and it notes the administration’s claim that the duties address long-standing gaps in trading partners’ own forced-labor bans. The BBC alone gives the Amazon refund amount and the breakdown of the remaining $29 billion still in review plus $1.6 billion awaiting banking details from importers. Open The Magazine alone describes the technical refund mechanism inside the Automated Commercial Environment and states that the ruling redraws limits on presidential trade authority. Al Jazeera records the administration’s announcement of the new levies last month and the 6-3 vote. The Lithuanian wire summary contains none of these details.

The refund totals and the February ruling rest on identical court documents carried across independent reporting chains, so those elements stand as the shared factual spine. The state lawsuits appear in two of the five accounts and introduce the forward legal conflict without contradiction from the others. The administration’s interest lies in preserving the protective effect of the original tariffs under a different statutory heading; the plaintiff states have an interest in blocking what they describe as an end-run around the Supreme Court decision. Importers have a direct financial stake in the remaining unpaid refunds and in any future challenges that might affect the new duties.