It’s safer to lose money than cross the president

After the Supreme Court held unlawful the emergency tariffs imposed in the months after President Trump’s 2025 inauguration, the government agreed, relatively quickly, to refund the wrongfully collected tariff revenue.

But some large U.S. companies — most notably Amazon — are declining to claim their refunds. This is not, presumably, because these companies don’t want the billion-plus dollars they’re owed; they are apparently calculating that requesting their money back might provoke the president’s disfavor, which could cost more than the abandoned refund.

Trump confirmed those concerns in April, telling CNBC’s “Squawk Box” that it will be “brilliant” if companies decline to seek refunds. “If they don’t do that, I’ll remember them,” said the president, chuckling — as he often does when floating something that should probably be cause for alarm. But the president generally gets high marks for candor and the first year of Trump’s second term provides good reason to assume he’s serious. 

Take, for example, the president’s executive orders directing federal agencies to cancel government contracts and suspend security clearances for law firms that employed or represented the president’s adversaries. Or the FCC’s politically charged investigations of networks........

© The Hill