The Trump administration has officially refunded about $100 billion in illegally obtained tariff revenue—and there’s still much more to be paid back.
The administration’s action is the result of the Supreme Court’s February ruling that the “reciprocal” tariffs Trump announced on “Liberation Day” in April 2025 under the 1977 International Emergency Economic Powers Act were unconstitutional.
For many companies that had to import costlier foreign goods, Tuesday marked their liberation day from Trump’s overstepping of his powers as president.
In the Tuesday filing, Customs and Border Protection official Brandon Lord said that, as of July 31, the entity created to track and deliver tariff refunds had received 252,496 refund declarations encompassing 25.1 million import entries. Approximately $100 billion in refunds is all set for disbursement by the Treasury Department, Lord wrote.
The Trump administration said it generated about $166 billion from the tariffs, so there is still $66 billion to be disbursed.
The court filing was part of a class action lawsuit led by California-based company Freestyle World on behalf of small, tariff-paying businesses that say there are obstacles to getting refunds through the CBP entity.
In any event, the billions in illegally generated tariff funds that are now heading back to businesses is a big loss for Trump, despite what he has been saying.
“Tariffs have been incredible. We’ve taken in hundreds of billions of dollars,” he told Fox News on Tuesday. “Supreme Court gave us a little shot, but we’re allowed to do it in a different manner.”
Trump went on to claim that, despite the court’s ruling, it still “brought all these companies that didn’t want to pay.”
After plenty of whining about the 6-3 decision, Trump sought other ways to implement tariffs, though those are being contested in court, too. On Monday, for instance, a lawsuit from 25 Democratic-led states accused Trump of illegally imposing tariffs under the 1974 Trade Act.
“After losing at the Supreme Court, the administration is once again trying to illegally raise taxes on families and businesses with a new round of tariffs,” New York Attorney General Letitia James said in a statement.
White House spokesperson Kush Desai said in response that the U.S. “is using its lawful authority to obtain the elimination of unreasonable acts, policies and practices that burden U.S. commerce.” He added: “A foreign country’s failure to impose and effectively enforce a prohibition on the importation of goods produced with forced labor is unreasonable and burdens U.S. commerce, including American workers, and must be addressed.”
