Tariffs

The Trump Administration Is Still Fighting To Keep Billions in Illegal Tariff Revenue

The administration has paid $20 billion in refunds. Now, it is asking a federal appeals court to limit which businesses will get the rest.

Eric Boehm | 6.5.2026 1:15 PM

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The Trump administration is still fighting to keep billions of dollars in tariff revenue that it unlawfully collected from American businesses.

Despite begrudgingly starting to refund some of those tariff payments in April, the Trump administration told a federal court this week that it should not have to refund all those payments. If the administration prevails, it would only have to issue refunds to the businesses that filed lawsuits challenging the legality of those tariffs—which the U.S. Supreme Court struck down in February—while many other businesses would be out of luck.

Meanwhile, the Trump administration is also trying to shield a top customs official from appearing before the Court of International Trade (CIT) next week in defiance of a judge's order.

To understand how we got to this point, let's go back to the Supreme Court's ruling in February. The high court........

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