A little over $20 billion in tariff refunds have been paid out to importers after the Supreme Court struck down the centerpiece of President Trump’s aggressive trade agenda earlier this year, according to newly disclosed court filings.
US Customs and Border Protection has processed about $20.6 billion in repayments stemming from the historic decision, with another $85 billion in potential and certified refunds in the pipeline, as NBC News first reported.
Toymaker Basic Fun said it has gotten $525,000 out of $7.4 million it’s owed, in sporadic payments spread out this month.
“It seems there is no method to this and no statements of why, how and when they are paying,” the company’s CEO Jay Foreman told The Post.
“It’s time to release the funds back into the economy, especially given how much we and others need these funds to support our businesses and fund our operations,” he added.
The identities of most of the refund recipients to date were not immediately known.
But retail giants and logistics firms including Costco, Walmart, Home Depot, Target, General Motors, Ford, FedEx, UPS and DHL were among the companies that previously lined up to recover their tariff payments.
The refunds are the product of the Supreme Court’s blockbuster February ruling that found Trump exceeded his authority when he imposed sweeping country-specific tariffs under the International Emergency Economic Powers Act, or IEEPA. He had cited it to slap duties on imports from China, Canada, Mexico and dozens of other countries.
The highest court in the land ruled 6-3 that the act does not authorize presidents to impose tariffs, delivering a major blow to Trump’s trade strategy and setting off a scramble inside the administration to process billions in refunds owed to importers.
The White House said thousands of businesses are still waiting to get paid because they never supplied the government with banking details.
According to the recent court filings, “4,185 consolidated refunds have not been transmitted to Treasury” because the importers seeking repayment failed to provide account information needed to process electronic transfers.
The IEEPA tariff regime included a 10% baseline reciprocal tariff on most imports as well as steeper country-specific levies that at various points reached as high as 125% on Chinese goods.
The challenged tariff system was built through a series of executive orders beginning in February 2025, when Trump imposed duties on imports from Canada, Mexico and China under the emergency-powers statute.
The White House later expanded the program dramatically through the president’s April 2025 “Liberation Day” order, which imposed a blanket 10% tariff on most imports while threatening even higher rates on dozens of countries.
The Supreme Court ultimately sided with importers who argued that Congress — not the president — controls tariff authority absent explicit statutory authorization.
Chief Justice John Roberts wrote that tariffs are a form of taxation and that Congress historically “speaks clearly” when granting presidents authority to impose them.
The ruling triggered a massive administrative operation within CBP, which created a new system known as CAPE to process refund claims tied to the invalidated tariffs.
Under the agency’s current guidance, importers can seek refunds for many unliquidated entries as well as some entries liquidated within the previous 80 days, though more complicated claims remain deferred to later phases of the program.
The process quickly became one of the largest customs refund efforts in US history.
Despite the Supreme Court defeat, Trump has continued collecting tariffs through a separate legal authority.
Immediately after the ruling, the administration based levies on Section 122 of the Trade Act of 1974, which allows presidents to impose temporary global tariffs of up to 15% for as long as 150 days.
A 10% global tariff imposed under that authority remains in place.
The Post has sought comment from the White House and CBP.
