A long list of companies around the world have filed preemptive lawsuits seeking refunds on tariffs imposed under President Donald Trump’s trade actions.
The Supreme Court’s Feb. 20 ruling struck down the president’s use of emergency powers to implement those tariffs, a major setback for the administration’s broader trade agenda.
With the legal foundation for the duties now in question, businesses may face a long and complex battle to recover payments they have already made.
Cosmetics giant Revlon, for example, sought refunds for the tariffs it paid in a Nov. 14 court filing, joining the wave of companies challenging the tariff regime.
The case pressed for a legal remedy by Jan. 31, underscoring the urgency businesses feel as they try to recover costs tied to the levies.
Days later, Costco also filed a lawsuit against the Trump administration seeking a “full refund” of import duties.
“The text of [the International Emergency Economic Powers Act (IEEPA)] does not use the word ‘tariff’ or any term of equivalent meaning,” Costco’s attorneys wrote in filings.
“IEEPA was first enacted in 1977 and has been amended several times, but it has never been amended to authorize, or used by any other president to impose, tariffs.”
Costco did not disclose how much the tariffs have cost the company.
Subsidiaries of the Toyota Group, Toyota Tsusho America, Toyota Tsusho Canada, and Toyota Tsusho Nexty Electronics America filed claims in November seeking full reimbursements.
Toyota projected this past spring that the levies would cost the company about $1.3 billion over two months.
Goodyear Tire & Rubber requested relief in December and explained how tariffs had harmed the company.
Last month, J Crew Group and the Dole Fresh Fruit Company also requested full refunds for all tariffs paid to the United States to date.
While the White House has said it has backup options to impose tariffs, the refund issue will be the “wild card” in the U.S. economy, says Mark Malek, CIO at Siebert Financial.
“The refund issue remains the wild card because importers now have a path to request repayment of already collected duties, which would convert what was once income into an immediate fiscal outflow,” Malek said in a note emailed to The Epoch Times.
The United States has reported record tariff revenues, already exceeding $132 billion through the fiscal year, up 300 percent from the same period in 2025, according to Treasury Department data.
Revlon signage in a Boots store in London on June 16, 2022. (Hannah McKay/Reuters)
The president wrote in a Jan. 12 Truth Social post that refunds “would be a complete mess, and almost impossible for our country to pay.”
Justice Brett Kavanaugh noted in his dissent that refunds would have “significant consequences” for the Treasury Department.
“The court 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,” Kavanaugh wrote.
“But that process is likely to be a ‘mess,’ as was acknowledged at oral argument.”
A new estimate from the Penn Wharton Budget Model indicates that the Supreme Court’s decision could trigger up to $175 billion in tariff refunds, dramatically raising the financial stakes for the federal government and for companies seeking to recoup duties they paid under the invalidated authority.
“Unless replaced by another source, future tariff revenue collections will fall by half,” the group wrote in a Feb. 20 report.
Reuters contributed to this report.
