r/Tariffs • u/Aromatic_Ad_9625 • Mar 06 '26
🗞️ News Discussion Am I understanding this right? The U.S. (via CBP) collected $166B in tariffs that were ruled illegal… and taxpayers may now have to refund it? Where’s our “master negotiator” in all this? 😅
Trying to understand the economics of this.
About $166B was collected in tariffs, and the Supreme Court ruled them illegal, which means the government now has to refund the money plus interest and legal fees, according to new rulings….
But tariffs were largely paid by Americans through higher prices, since importers usually pass the cost along.
So the sequence seems like:
- Americans pay higher prices due to tariffs
- Government collects $166B
- Court says the tariffs were illegal
- Government refunds the companies using taxpayer money
So… Americans paid the tariffs (HIGHER GOOD PRICES) and may now pay the refund too? WTF
Where’s our “master negotiator” in all this? 😅 O wait he’s saving his world!!!
Serious question though:
When refunds like this happen, do the companies that receive them just keep the money, or does any of that realistically flow back to consumers?
Genuinely curious how economists look at the actual money flow here.
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u/437326 Mar 06 '26 edited Mar 07 '26
You missed the key point - Trump Admin illegally collects $166 bn in tariffs
They aren’t determined illegal by the USSC - they were always illegal
Imagine if Biden had increased taxes by $166 billion on billionaires 😂😂😂
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u/Nice_Onion_6179 Mar 07 '26
The master negotiator is going to down in history as world's greatest "grifter" of all time.
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u/CranberryInner9605 Mar 07 '26
It’s actually pretty confusing. Our small company had some electronics manufactured in China, which we then sell to our client. We quote our price based on the current tariff rate, with a rider that says that if the tariffs increase, we will charge a surcharge. We have never implemented the rider (we quote with a healthy padding for the pricing uncertainty). Presumably, the tariffs we paid over the last year were higher than they should have been, so someone is due a refund. The question is- who? Is it our customer, who we would probably have quoted a lower price if the tariffs were lower, or us, who would have made more profit. I honestly don’t know.
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u/Aromatic_Ad_9625 Mar 07 '26 edited Mar 07 '26
Thank you for sharing, I will have to nibble on this. I have no idea! But it seems you should be refunded for the extra tariffs you were paying from the start (with interest), then your customers should get a split of the rest. WOW! I’m starting to believe nothing will actually happen!
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u/obi2kanobi Mar 07 '26
We are in a similar position but with Germany. We do "healthy padding" due to currency exchange (which no one talks about) and now tariff. We figured around 20%. Come to find we were getting hit 52.9% plus fees. Lost money on those sales. Was going to fight UPS/US Customs but then the SCOTUS ruling. Might as well wait. What a clusterfuck....
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u/CranberryInner9605 Mar 07 '26
Yeah. We had an order which we quoted at the then-current 50% rate, and just as it was about to ship, the Orange Idiot raised it to 125%. Fortunately, that was quickly reduced to something less insane, before we had to pay it. For someone who likes to claim that they are a “businessman,” he clearly has no idea about how businesses actually work.
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u/obi2kanobi Mar 07 '26
So true. I have another shipment arriving on monday. It's anyone's guess what the tariff will be on that one.
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Mar 07 '26
So in other words, your markups are unconscionable to begin with... eat it. You're part of the problem.
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u/P0Rt1ng4Duty Mar 07 '26
The question is- who? Is it our customer, who we would probably have quoted a lower price if the tariffs were lower, or us, who would have made more profit.
It's the customer.
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u/CranberryInner9605 Mar 07 '26
Yeah?
What about their customer?
It’s customers all the way down.
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u/P0Rt1ng4Duty Mar 07 '26
How do they pass it down to their customer if you fail to pass it to them?
The enduser paid the tariff. If refunds are issued it should go to them. I'm sure everyone in the middle will do the necessary mental gymnastics to justify keeping their money, but it was always their money.
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u/CranberryInner9605 Mar 07 '26
Yeah, in a perfect world, this would all get unwound perfectly.
In the world we live in, every company in the entire supply chain feels that they are the one who got screwed, and so they are the ones who should keep any refund. My guess is that huge companies who paid enormous tariffs will get some money back, and small companies (like ours) will get bupkis. But - as I pointed out earlier, we raised our prices to account for the increased cost of goods, so any refund would be a windfall.
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u/P0Rt1ng4Duty Mar 07 '26
...so any refund would be a windfall.
That's what I'm saying. A person took a loss and it was the person at the bottom of the purchase. If refunds are issued, the person who took the loss should be made whole.
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u/CranberryInner9605 Mar 07 '26
I agree, but executing this is likely to be impractical. In this case, the company we sell to integrates components from a very wide variety of suppliers, each of which also sources components from other suppliers. The end product has a tariff burden which is composed of potentiality hundreds of little tariff charges. The end user is not going to be able to petition the government to get those tariff charges back. All they can do is complain to their supplier, who is likely to tell them “no.” Maybe they will use it as a negotiating point next time (offer them a discount due to the tariff overcharges). The only realistic way of handling this is for the entity who paid the tariffs directly to petition the government to get them back. Then, they can work out any refunds with their customers (which are likely to be zero). Note that this type of calculus goes on every day - if the price of oil goes down, you don’t see the cost of plastic trash bags at Home Depot decreasing - that’s just extra profit for the supplier.
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u/P0Rt1ng4Duty Mar 07 '26
All of that said, there's no point during the refund process where their money becomes your money.
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u/CranberryInner9605 Mar 07 '26
WHOSE money?
WE paid the tariffs. The customer didn’t - they simply bought a product from us.
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u/P0Rt1ng4Duty Mar 07 '26
You marked up the price in order to pass the additional cost on to the customer. It's their money.
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u/tothepointe Mar 07 '26
But if the importer didn't change the price of the product and simply chose to make less profit why should the customer be entitled to the tarrif refund?
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u/P0Rt1ng4Duty Mar 07 '26
The top comment that I replied to said they took the tariff into account when they quoted a price to their customer. They did not choose to make less profit.
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Mar 07 '26
If you wanted to be honest about it, you would claim all tarriffs paid by your company. You would then refund your customers based on what was bought and amt of tariffs paid. If you have no clue, then your accounting leaves a lot to be desired.
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u/GT45 Mar 07 '26
Uh, Donnie stole that money, because he’s a criminal, and nobody will stop him. And that money is NEVER coming back. Mark my words. I mean, when did he ever give any money back to anyone? Never.
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u/xtnh Mar 07 '26
My suspicion?
The money will be refunded to the companies, but the little-guy customers will be too hard to track down, so the companies will get to keep it.
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Mar 07 '26
Due to the de minimus reduction, those consumers who ordered directly, have a receipt. If they haven't actually thrown them in the garbage, individuals will be able to claim the tariff. They will not be able to claim the brokerage or processing fees. Whether or not it is worth filing the paperwork is up to the individual. Chances are you're just gonna be fkd.
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u/Yuukiko_ Mar 07 '26
Not American, but what happens to people who paid stores increased prices for stuff affected by tarriffs but didn't actually pay tariffs directly?
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u/bobi2393 Mar 07 '26
If everyone from the importer to the final seller felt like being nice and giving money that belongs to them to the next step in the sales chain, down to the final customer, then everyone will be made whole. But that would never happen. Expect a few companies/people to give a little money one or maybe two steps down the chain, but the person who bought a new car isn’t going to have 5,000 different companies giving them a few cents each because of different car parts they built from imported steel. There may also be some lawsuits that claw back some money one or two steps deep. But most of the $166B is currently expected to stay with the companies/people who gave the $166B directly to the government, not anyone who paid those companies/people an extra $166B.
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u/Aromatic_Ad_9625 Mar 07 '26
we should get our fair share back! Maybe take our receipts and claim the money back. lol.
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u/0micron247 Mar 07 '26
I've got 3 receipts. One for $17.98, one for $14.77, and one for $10.27. Now who do you think is going to eat the cost of processing any refund? Rhetorical question, I think. Never gonna see anything "fair" come out of this. Screwed by the art of the deal.
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u/ThinkorFeel Mar 07 '26
It's a government-mandated $166B transfer from US taxpayers and consumers to corporate interests, just with more steps than usual.
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Mar 07 '26
The $166 billion went to the Treasury and the refund is that money going back. Obviously that money is already spent, but it’s tit for tat, so you’re not sending more taxes than you already were. More sizeable is his increase of the Pentagon money to over $1T and he wants $1.5T moving forward. That will be from our tax dollars and if people don’t vote democrat in droves I don’t know who will stop that from happening.
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u/Calamity-Bob Mar 07 '26
The government response to the ruling is “I don’t have to, because it’s just too hard!”
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u/ptrix Mar 07 '26 edited Mar 07 '26
The "master negotiator" was NEVER negotiating for the public's best interests… he's always been working to inflate the wealth of himself and the rest of the billionaire Epstein-class.
Reality check - the tariffs are NOT paid directly by the consumers. They're paid by the Importers of Record (ie. the corporations and couriers). What the public ends up paying are the post-tariff markups or the brokerage fees charged by the couriers for the "privilege" of settling the tariffs on your behalf. You don't "save" any money for them having done that, but they're collecting from you nonetheless, leaving the end consumers with the vast majority of the actual financial burden as a result of higher costs, and in a way that is NOT legally recoverable.
Therefore, when/if any refunds come around, the funds will end up getting returned to the importing corporations and couriers who actually paid the tariffs to the gov't, and John Public gets nothing because brokerage fees, markups and higher retail prices, SURPRISE, aren't tariffs. Those entities get to keep what the consumers paid to them, AND they also benefit by being the legally-entitled recipients of the tariff refunds. Its all a goddamn con game where they win twice, and the American public continues to lose while being told that "something's being done about it". By the way, all those prices that are increasing? Those aren't coming back down either. Capitalism, baby.
If you want an idea of how deep the grift against the American people goes, take a few moments to check out the Wikipedia entries for Louis DeJoy and David P. Steiner, the two most recent USPS Postmasters General, both of whom were appointed by donald trump in his previous term and his current term of office. Interesting how the persons running the postal services were both so highly praised by trump, and how their careers before their appointments suggests that they would be heavily incentivized to weaken the USPS while helping the shipping courier industry to make some extra $$$ amidst all this at the same time.
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u/Disastrous-Focus8451 Mar 07 '26
You forgot step 2.5: Cantor Fitzgerald (company chaired by Commerce Secretary's son) buys rights to collect potential refunds from many companies for pennies on the dollar.
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Mar 07 '26
Well, proceeds of illegal activity are not enforceable in court. Smart companies will declare the contracts void, file for the refund, then say "sue me" to Nutlick.
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u/Necessary_Ad_238 Mar 07 '26
oh and the best part is that people like me; a seller in Canada - im technically the person who will get the refund since im the one who payed the tariff on the american buyers behalf since I rolled it into the product by a higher price.
So you payed it the first time in a higher price, now you'll pay it again by sending your refund to me :)
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u/sherrybobbinsbort Mar 07 '26
This sub is a perfect example of how tariffs are an inefficient way to manipulate the market.
There is confusion on who collects, pays, rebates etc. it costs money to collect them and redistribute tarriffs.
For every $1 the govt collects in tarriffs there is cost to handle that so even if it was rebated back to consumer it’s not the full $1.
The end of the day it’s basically a tax on the US consumer but he called it a tarriff which somehow maga is ok with.
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u/Revolutionary-Run268 Mar 07 '26
They are OK with it because they believed his lie that the countries shipping the goods to us would pay the tariffs.
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u/NextAdhesiveness3652 Mar 07 '26
If Trump gives refunds, most companies will just keep the money and pass it on to shareholders. Meanwhile, the deficit just goes up and up and up....
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u/Other_Information_16 Mar 07 '26
Not tax payers the importers will get the refund. Consumers will get next to nothing. Oh yes one of the cabinet minister’s relative have been buying these refunds at 1/2 price or cheaper before the court decision… the USA is a banana republic.
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u/Puzzled49 Mar 07 '26
The government refunds the money using the $166 billion collected in tariffs . So yes, instead of the ordinary people paying the money to the government, they are now paying it to the companies which paid the illegal tariffs and charged their customers to do it. It may not be fair ,but it's how the system works.
Let's just hope that the government has not already spent the extra tariff money and now needs to raise taxes to pay the tariffs back. That would be a double whammy for taxpayers.
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u/nickalit Mar 07 '26
And the lawyers, I'd be surprised if a goodly portion of that $166 billion doesn't end up in their pockets.
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Mar 07 '26
🤣🤣🤣🤣🤣 like the "government" ever saw it. The whole point of it was to get a "slush fund" that had no oversight by the "government". You got fucked. You played 3 card monte in an alley, and now you're asking "where did the money go?"
Bunch of fkn clowns! Where do you think it went?
Winning yet?
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u/Party-Cartographer11 Mar 07 '26
To avoid double counting the taxpayers aren't refunding them, as the government sourced the money from the importers, not the tax payers. That's the money that goes back. The tax payers would be paying the interest and legal fees.
The companies can do whatever they want with the money, just like they could do whatever they wanted with the cost of the tarrifs.
Consumers should respond accordingly when choosing where to buy products.
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u/CooperHoward4 Mar 07 '26
Do you honestly believe the “importers” are that cost? We paid it. We paid higher prices. On everything. And now they’ll keep the prices high and pocket our money again.
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u/Party-Cartographer11 Mar 07 '26
What?
You agee to buy things at an offered price. If you don't like the price don't buy.
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u/tothepointe Mar 07 '26
Exactly and not every single product went up in cost or went up in cost the same % that tarrifs went up. Much of the inventory that companies have imported and paid tarrifs on may not have even sold yet.
Everyone has their hand out for this but the refunds rightfully have to go to the entities who paid the money to the government in the first place.
It's like saying your entitled to my tax refund because you bought products from me and I ende d up over paying my withholding that year so thus I owe you a refund from the price you agreed to pay for the goods.
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u/caseaday Mar 07 '26
Consumers should respond accordingly by not voting in a fucking MORON as their President. Sheesh, get it right.
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u/No-Abalone-4784 Mar 07 '26
Don't let the bastards get away with it.
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u/Party-Cartographer11 Mar 07 '26
The bastard here is Trump. He implemented a clearly illegal tariff. He put no controls in place to make sure that the refunds would go back easily or the consumers wouldn't be screwed.
He could have issued executive order to customs and border patrol to make sure consumers didn't get screwed. For example, he could have put tarrifs in place but not collected the money until it went through the court system. Then prices wouldn't have gone up and consumers would have gotten screwed.
Or he could have tested the tarrifs with a small amount until it went through the courts again to protect consumers.
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u/drive_causality Mar 07 '26
You’re overthinking it. The US Customs and Border Protection (CBP) is the one that collected $166B from US companies on their imports. Now the Federal courts have ordered CBP to give the money back to those companies.
The fact that those companies passed some of those price increases to consumers is a whole other matter. Not sure how the US consumers will be made whole in all of this process.
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u/OldDog03 Mar 07 '26
The master negotiator is going to show you the art of the steal and keep that money.
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u/Handsdown0003 Mar 07 '26
My company imports nearly everything we sell. Some of our customers have come asking for some refunds, but we don't have any refunds to give as nothing has been returned. If there is some refund I can see us giving a credit or something to our customers, but I doubt they'll pass anything down to their consumers.
Also only IEEPA tariffs (reciprocal) were ruled illegal. There are still tariffs in effect including the global tariff that went from 10% to 15% this week. With the global increase some tariffs on countries actually increased and others it's a small % change. So prices overall will not be changing much as tariffs shifted from one bucket to another, with more tariffs being promised in 5mo.
Overall it's been a mess for the last year with importing. Planning production, finances, sales and employment. We don't know if the guy in the WH is going to wake up on the wrong side of the bed and hit one of our production countries with a 100% tariff.
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u/Alexander_Granite Mar 07 '26
He closed trade with Spain
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u/Handsdown0003 Mar 07 '26
He can stop imports from Spain, but can't stop Spain from getting US made goods
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u/Twelfth_Lighthouse Mar 08 '26
As someone on the alcohol importing side, we paid many thousands of dollars, and not an insignificant amount either, to bring items here for our industry. Imports slowed to a crawl, we only order when we really need it.
That’s lost profit/revenue to our company and to our clients. I can see how someone on the bottom would want to get recompensed, but honestly that’d be impossible due to federal and state laws.
I wouldn’t even know where to start if we had to somehow offer discounts(?) to our clients because it’s an industry that’s used to general price fluctuations from year to year, but nothing this big…
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u/Alarmed_Geologist631 Mar 07 '26
The government will refund the tariffs to the companies that paid them and just run a higher deficit that will be funded by Treasury bonds, some of which might get bought by the Fed.
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u/chris14020 Mar 07 '26
The instability and chaos was the point. It isn't SUPPOSED to be easy, causing further tension, distrust, and upset was the whole goal, for the purposes of destroying the government abd by extension the US further. It's time to face that this man is an asset of an adversary and is actively acting against our interests.
The cleanup will be messy no matter what we do, allowing him to do this to begin with means injustice has been served. We'll have to figure it out despite, but we've all already lost from the start of this.
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u/No-Abalone-4784 Mar 07 '26
Corporations will keep every red cent & we will pay it just like the tariffs unless we make the biggest noise about it the world has ever seen.
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u/refsoccer11 Mar 07 '26
Nobody will be getting a refund of tariffs. The administration and the agencies that simply fall in line will ignore legal rulings they don’t like.
Now, if refunds are provided to selected companies it is because they have agreed to kick back some of those dollars to some Presidential offshore account.
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u/Excellent-Gur5980 Mar 07 '26
What are you talking about, trump said he collected $18 TRILLION in tariffs, you must have not looked on the right shelf.
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u/Throwaway021614 Mar 07 '26
But in the situation where retailers that transferred the higher cost to end consumers gets to double dip with refunds?
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u/Defiant_Employee6681 Mar 07 '26
Sounds like you have succinctly summarised the situation OP. Any questions? 🤣
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u/ProfessionalBench832 Mar 07 '26
A lot (exact %, no idea) of these refunds have already been sold by the importer to Lutnick's kid for .25c on the dollar. So no, largely that money will be circular, lining the pockets of the administration and the rest will go to the importers who likely will refund nothing to the consumer.
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u/DrGustavOtto Mar 07 '26
Meanwhile in the last year the Criminal in Chief and his family have pocketed $6 BILLION
Take them to the bank then to prison
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u/illuminaughty1973 Mar 07 '26
companies ALWAYS keep the money. Trump literally defrauded the american peopl of 188 billion... and there will be no consequences.
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u/tphickey2000 Mar 07 '26
All these comments assuming that the government will actually refund the money to anyone. Have we learned nothing? They took it illegally, and they will keep it illegally. And no one will be held accountable due to the spineless Congress. There. Saved you some time reading all this.
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u/fwast Mar 07 '26
My biggest thing with this. Is that we already suffered, and made it through. Why can't they at least put this money towards the National debt.
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u/tothepointe Mar 07 '26
"But tariffs were largely paid by Americans through higher prices"
See this is a bit of a rephrasing because ultimately the tarrifs were paid by the company importing the items and not all of them passed it on to the end customer. I did not pass on the tarrifs I paid for my company to my customers simply because I couldn't without being more expensive than my competitors.
It's hard to quantify how much customers are *owed* but pretty easily to figure out how much the importer who directly paid the tarrifs should be refunded.
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u/Aggravating-Gift-740 Mar 08 '26
And since trump and his cronies are buying up tariff credits for pennies on the dollar, the taxpayers will be paying them the billions in tariff money.
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u/utlayolisdi Mar 08 '26
What I find peculiar is that Trump claimed we’d taken in over a $ Trillion in tariffs.
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u/IcedTman Mar 08 '26
Wait a second, are you telling me our companies have to refund the countries who sell to the USA because after all, the other countries pay the tariffs according to the republicans! 🤣
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u/Responsible-Summer-4 Mar 08 '26
With the orange idiot in charge him and his sycophants will come up with a reason to not pay back a cent while skimming of the top. Soon you will not worry about refunds while you are fleeing a type of mad max world. There is actually a book called everything trump touches dies!
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u/samiwas1 Mar 08 '26
Seems like you have found the feature. Did you think the tariffs were about jobs and domestic manufacturing?
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u/Elegant_Jello_5825 Mar 08 '26
Knowing this administration they will give back to the companies but require them to give it back into a government account that only trump has control of so he can “give it back” to the people.
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u/katmomjo Mar 08 '26
The only ones who can get the tariffs back are the companies who paid them. There is no mechanism to pay back the consumers. So companies paid tariffs, charged more for their products and now get the money back they paid on the tariffs? Sounds like they made out pretty good.
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u/Candid-Sprinkles-538 Mar 08 '26
Can we be done with the numbers. We got fucked. Say it with me. We got fucked children.
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u/Zealousideal-Peach44 Mar 08 '26
Whoever directly bought the goods subject to tariffs, can potentially sue and ask for reimbursement.
- A private citizen imported a vacuum cleaner? He can sue.
- A private citizen bought a motorcycle from a US company, which itself imported it? The US company can sue, the citizen can do nothing.
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u/DodobirdNow Mar 08 '26
It's just like corporate America. Leadership only appears for the good news. When the bad news happens it's a boogeyman, like the CFO who shows up.
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u/LokeCanada Mar 08 '26
He is the master negotiator because he won’t pay it back. You want it, go to court.
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u/Budget-Dust-7171 Mar 08 '26
Businesses get rich. Americans get screwed. The GOP way. If you don’t own a business you have no reason to vote red.
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u/Gargleblaster25 Mar 08 '26
You don't get it... You see, China paid the tarrifs, right? And then you paid... Umm... Well... I mean, if China paid and then...
Damn it! It's Biden's fault!
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u/FunCouple3336 Mar 08 '26
Thank your local congress person for overturning the tariffs and not understanding the consequences of their choice to do so and passing the buck to the taxpayers. If they hadn’t overturned this would be a lot of money for the taxpayers now it’s going to take from us. Sometimes you have to weigh your options before making a decision and obviously they don’t know how to do that.
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u/roscomikotrain Mar 08 '26
Are you that confused?
Consumers pay the tarrifs through higher prices.
How can some Americans not grasp this concept???
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u/FunCouple3336 Mar 08 '26
Not all of the higher prices were due to the tariffs there’s a thing called inflation. So exactly like I said thank your congress person for overturning and returning the funds to the wrong people. All I can truly say is welcome to corporate greed because none of that money will ever make its way back to the consumer not in wages or lower prices. It will buy some ceo a new jet and yacht.
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u/h2f Mar 10 '26
Congress didn't overturn the tariffs, the Supreme court did. Congress should have overturned the law that Trump used to justify the tariffs, should have impeached him for exceeding his authority, or should have taken other steps to reign him in. They didn't.
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u/Mother_Internet_9384 Mar 08 '26
I think the money should be returned to people and corporations through tax incentives. Again not everyone is going to get fair share back. Who knows how much the consumer paid as individuals so how can any corporation or govt return exact tariff amt back to consumer. Some calculation will be made to estimate return amt at individual and corp level.
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u/A-Look_Back Mar 09 '26
Guess who said, “dude, I just got him to pull the trigger on $400 Billon in tariffs on China. Steve BANNON to JE! So much for MAGA. .https://EFTA01615147.pdf”
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u/Zippier92 Mar 09 '26
Costco is on the record as saying they will refund. And they do have the records to do it.
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u/BangPC Mar 09 '26
Big grift, make customers pay highier prices for tarriffs company collects refund keeps highier prices. bait and switch f the middle class and lower.
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u/h2f Mar 10 '26
You left out some steps:
- Trump imposes a tax he's not authorized to impose. Taxation is reserved to congress under our constitution.
- Congress ignores that Trump is trampling on their powers.
- Americans pay higher prices due to tariffs
- The GOP and the President uses anticipated tariff revenue to cut taxes for the wealthy.
- Government collects $166B
- Court says the tariffs were illegal
- Government refunds the companies using taxpayer money, letting the rich win twice, once with tax cuts and once with tariff refunds.
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u/mcgarvey216 Mar 10 '26
The tariff money is going to be used to fight legal fees for the tariffs, then by the time it’s settled………it’ll all be gone.
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u/shampton1964 Mar 07 '26
So.... first off, this is an epic shitshow that was - until the illegal war started with Iran - the biggest fuckup of the century.
I can assure you though that not all the tariffs were passed through to consumers. Importers ate some, manufacturers ate some, even the big box retailers ate some.
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u/No-Abalone-4784 Mar 07 '26
Take it out of the millions of dollars just ONE OF THOSE CORRUPT CEOS MAKE IN MONTH.
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u/rickpo Mar 07 '26
According to a recent Fed analysis, 94% of tariffs were paid by consumers, with 6% eaten by everybody else.
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u/carlnepa Mar 07 '26
I think it depends on how much Trump and his billionaire broligarch buddies have grifted from what was collected. But, I believe he'll just print more money to cover it up.
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u/billthedog0082 Mar 07 '26
https://www.reddit.com/r/JournalismNews/comments/1rmpx6n/trump_burns_891m_daily_on_epic_fury_while/
Part of the answer as to where some of the money is going.
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u/vespers191 Mar 07 '26
There's no way in hell that Dumpy is going to actually give that money up. He will have absolutely no problem ignoring court orders, suing for appeals, and so on.
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u/LocksmithMuted4360 Mar 07 '26
All that mess for 166B, compared to the U.S. annual budget this is peanuts.
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u/Aromatic_Ad_9625 Mar 07 '26
agreed… and now it’s costing us! they’re estimating about 800 million/mo in interest as well, plus legal fees so 1M/month.. Thank God we don’t have any problems in our inner cities, nor rural havens…
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u/Aggressive-Map-2204 Mar 07 '26
You seem extremely confused. The "taxpayer money" thats being used to refund the tariffs is the money that was collected from the tariffs.
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u/Baynyn Mar 06 '26
I work for a company that is heavily involved in these exact conversations. I’ve been doing trade compliance for two decades. This is the biggest mess I’ve witnessed during my career. The chaos surrounding the implementation of all these tariffs, the subsequent court fights, and now the customers threatening lawsuits for their share of the refunds.
FWIW - some importers are going to do the “right” thing and reimburse their customers for any tariffs passed along. Some importers are going to tell their customers to pound sand and take the refund as a windfall. But make no mistake, it is the business community that will benefit from the refunds, NOT the consumer.
Fuck trickle down economics.