The Supreme Court was clear last month when it ruled that President Donald Trump’s tariffs issued under an emergency federal law were illegal. But the high court left open the question and process of refunds, with Justice Brett Kavanaugh complaining in dissent that the majority “says nothing today about whether, and if so how, the Government should go about returning the billions of dollars that it has collected from importers.”
A federal judge’s order on Wednesday set the groundwork for the next steps on the refund front — that is, if the order remains intact, with the Trump administration seeming intent on challenging it.
The order came from Judge Richard Eaton of the U.S. Court of International Trade, a specialized tribunal which, the justices said in the tariffs ruling, has jurisdiction on the matter (as opposed to a regular federal court).
His order came in the case of a company called Atmus Filtration, which sued for a refund plus interest. The administration acknowledged in a separate court filing on Wednesday that it would have to pay interest on refunds. A report from the Cato Institute conservatively estimated that tariff interest is running at around $23 million a day.
Notably, Eaton said all companies subjected to the illegal tariffs are entitled to the benefit of the Supreme Court ruling, whether or not they’ve already filed lawsuits.
Eaton, a Clinton appointee, said the trade court’s chief judge indicated to him that he’d be the only one handling the refund issue, so we could be hearing a lot more from him going forward.
The Wall Street Journal reported Wednesday that Eaton denied a Justice Department request to pause his ruling while the government appeals. The Journal reported that the judge “said the repayment process should be straightforward and grew impatient when a Justice Department lawyer said the government hadn’t yet formalized its position on refunding the tariffs. . . . ‘Your position is clear,’ the judge said. ‘The Supreme Court told you what your position is.’”
The administration acknowledged before the Supreme Court ruling that it would have to issue refunds if it lost.
Eaton ordered a conference with the parties for Friday morning, so the next steps could become clearer then, unless an urgent appeal and quick action by an appellate court change the landscape before then.
The refund litigation is developing as a coalition of states on Thursday announced the filing of a new lawsuit against Trump’s attempt to impose tariffs under different legal authority than the one the justices rejected last month.
