Well, this is moving faster than anyone expected.
A federal trade court judge just told the Trump administration to start cutting checks — ordering refunds on the massive pile of tariffs the Supreme Court struck down last month. This is a significant potential bit of stimulus for the US economy as it relates to $130 billion.
Judge Eaton isn’t in the mood to wait around. The the Manhattan-based Court of International Trade judge issued a written order directing the administration to begin the process of refunding importers and wants updates on Friday.
According to the WSJ, the government tried to get a pause while it appeals. Denied. A DOJ lawyer said they hadn’t even figured out their position on refunds yet.
“Your position is clear,” the judge said. “The Supreme Court told you what your position is.”
Over 2,000 lawsuits are now stacked up from everyone from Costco to FedEx to Pandora looking to get their money back. The mechanics of actually unwinding all of this are still messy — CBP says it would have to manually review millions of import entries. The judge’s response? “We live in the age of computers.”
The administration will appeal, and there’s still a long road ahead on the logistics. But the direction of travel here is clear. The money is coming back. The question is just how long it takes.
What’s wild is that this whole thing got kicked into gear by one small case — a filtration company — that did something the other 2,000+ filers didn’t: asked for an emergency order. That’s it. One procedural move might have quickly changed the trajectory for every importer in the country and moved up the entire timeline much sooner than the 2-year litigious plan that Trump hinted at.
Ultimately, that’s probably good for the Trump administration as it would help to goose the economy.
In the short term, it will be worth watching the Friday hearing for next steps.
This article was written by Adam Button at investinglive.com.