The Trump administration has refunded more than $100 billion in tariff revenue after the Supreme Court ruled the president lacked authority to impose sweeping "Liberation Day" levies, and tens of billions more remain in the pipeline.
A court filing submitted Tuesday in the U.S. Court of International Trade confirmed the milestone. CBP official Brandon Lord reported that the agency's refund portal had received 252,496 tariff refund declarations covering more than 25 million import entries as of July 31, with the $100 billion already sent to the Treasury Department for disbursement to importers. The figure represents over half the revenue collected under the tariffs the Court invalidated.
The refunds stem from the Supreme Court's 6-3 ruling in February that struck down Trump's use of the International Emergency Economic Powers Act, a 1977 law designed for national-security emergencies, as the legal basis for broad import levies. The Court held that IEEPA did not grant the president independent power to tax imports, a function the Constitution reserves to Congress. Critically, the justices declined to include a carve-out that would have let the government keep revenue already collected, forcing the administration to return the money.
The total pool of available reimbursements stands at up to $175 billion, the Washington Examiner reported. With $100 billion disbursed, roughly $29 billion in possible refunds remains under review by authorities. Another $1.6 billion is backlogged because importers have not yet supplied their banking details to CBP's CAPE portal, the system the agency built to process the flood of claims.
Approximately 300,000 companies are eligible to apply for refunds through CAPE. Some of the largest have already collected. Apple received a $2.2 billion tariff refund, and Amazon reported receiving a $600 million reimbursement last week.
But for smaller businesses, the process has been far less smooth. The New York Post reported that some recipients have described the refund operation as disorganized, with thousands of companies still waiting for payment. Jay Foreman, CEO of toy company Basic Fun, said the experience lacked transparency:
"It seems there is no method to this and no statements of why, how and when they are paying."
Foreman urged the government to move faster, saying businesses need the funds to support operations. That frustration is not surprising given the scale: over 1,000 firms had already filed lawsuits seeking refunds even before the Supreme Court handed down its ruling, National Review noted. Companies including Costco, Revlon, and Bumble Bee Foods were among those that went to court early.
The February ruling landed with force. Chief Justice John Roberts, writing for the majority, rejected the administration's reading of IEEPA in pointed terms:
"Based on two words separated by 16 others in IEEPA... the President asserts the independent power to impose tariffs on imports from any country, of any product, at any rate, for any amount of time. Those words cannot bear such weight."
Two of the three justices Trump himself appointed, Neil Gorsuch and Amy Coney Barrett, joined the majority. Only Justices Thomas, Alito, and Kavanaugh dissented. The ruling left certain other tariffs, including those on steel and aluminum imposed under separate statutory authority, intact.
The decision was one of several high-profile moments in which the Court checked executive authority this term. In a separate case, the administration pivoted to Congress after the Court struck down a birthright citizenship executive order, underscoring the limits the justices have drawn around unilateral presidential action.
Trump did not accept the setback quietly. He called the ruling "deeply disappointing" and said he was "ashamed of certain members of the Court... for not having the courage to do what's right for the country." In an April statement, he focused on the financial consequences:
"All they had to do was add one sentence, just one sentence, and that's you don't have to pay anything taken in thus far back, but because they didn't add... we have to pay back $165 billion. So, I'm not happy with the Supreme Court, I'll be honest with you."
By Tuesday, his tone had shifted to forward-looking. In a Fox News interview, Trump said tariffs remain central to his economic agenda despite the legal reversal.
"Tariffs have been incredible. We've taken in hundreds of billions of dollars. Supreme Court gave us a little shot, but we're allowed to do it in a different manner."
That "different manner" has taken concrete form. The administration promptly invoked several other laws to reimpose tariffs, turning to century-old trade statutes to keep the policy alive. Treasury Secretary Scott Bessent told reporters that the administration is pursuing Section 301 of the Trade Act of 1974 and has launched over 75 investigations under that authority since the Supreme Court ruling, far exceeding the historical annual average.
Bessent told Fox News the tariffs could be restored to previous levels by the beginning of July:
"We had a setback at the Supreme Court in terms of the tariff policy. But we will be implementing or conducting Section 301 studies, so the tariffs could be back in place at the previous level by [the] beginning of July."
Even with $100 billion out the door, the refund process is far from over. Trade lawyers have warned that the full unwinding could take years of litigation across multiple jurisdictions, with U.S. Customs, the Court of International Trade, and lower courts all likely involved. TD Securities estimated refunds could take 12 to 18 months to roll out, and that clock started only after the ruling.
Joyce Adetutu, a trade lawyer and partner at Vinson & Elkins, put it plainly: "It's going to be a bumpy ride for awhile."
Trump himself acknowledged as much at a press conference, saying, "I guess it has to get litigated for the next two years." The scale of the operation, hundreds of thousands of declarations, tens of millions of import entries, and $175 billion in potential payouts, makes that timeline plausible.
The episode fits a broader pattern in which the Supreme Court has drawn firm lines around executive power, from trade policy to challenges to the administrative state. The administration has adapted each time, finding alternative legal pathways. Whether those alternatives survive their own legal challenges remains an open question.
Meanwhile, the downstream consequences of the ruling extend well beyond refund checks. With tariff revenue reversed and new levies still working through legal channels, the gap between policy ambition and legal authority sits at the center of the administration's trade agenda. The Court's ruling also left open how other administration policies affected by Supreme Court decisions will be implemented going forward.
The numbers tell the story in sharp terms. One hundred billion dollars returned. Twenty-nine billion under review. One-point-six billion stuck because companies have not filed their banking information. Apple alone collected $2.2 billion. Amazon took home $600 million. Thousands of smaller importers are still waiting, some with lawsuits already filed, others navigating a portal that industry leaders have called opaque.
The administration's position is that the tariff agenda remains on track through alternative legal channels, with Bessent projecting restoration of previous tariff levels by midsummer. But the Section 301 investigations and other statutory mechanisms the administration has invoked will face their own legal scrutiny. Courts have already shown a willingness to limit executive overreach on trade, and two of Trump's own appointees voted to do exactly that.
The Constitution gives Congress the power to tax imports. The Supreme Court enforced that line. What matters now is whether the administration's next set of legal tools can hold up where IEEPA could not, because the tariff policy is only as durable as the law underneath it.