GoKawiilThe US government today opened an online portal for submitting tariff refund requests, two months after the Supreme Court ruled that President Trump illegally imposed the International Emergency Economic Powers Act (IEEPA) tariffs. The refunds will be paid to importers and customs brokers, while consumers who paid higher prices because of the tariffs won’t necessarily get anything back.
US Customs and Border Protection (CBP) opened the Consolidated Administration and Processing of Entries (CAPE) portal for IEEPA refunds. “Importers and authorized customs brokers can now file their CAPE Declarations,” said a CBP bulletin issued today.
Over 330,000 importers paid a total of $166 billion in IEEPA duties as of March 4, a March 6 court filing by a CBP trade office official said. Despite moving ahead with the portal to comply with the Supreme Court ruling, it appears the Trump administration is looking into how it can avoid paying back the entire $166 billion.
“There’s alternative authorities that perhaps could reduce that number quite a bit, but it’s a work in progress,” National Economic Council Director Kevin Hassett told Fox Business this month when asked if the government will refund the entire amount. Hassett said reducing the refunds is something that US Trade Representative Jamieson Greer “is studying very carefully.”
A long process and glitches expected
This is the first phase of the CAPE process, which “is designed to consolidate refunds of IEEPA duties including interest rather than processing refunds on an entry-by-entry basis,” today’s CBP bulletin said. The government says refunds will generally be issued 60 to 90 days after acceptance of a CAPE declaration.
As The New York Times wrote today, it would not be surprising if the brand-new refund process suffers from delays in processing refunds: