Potential Trump tariff refund bill could top $1 trillion as Supreme Court fight looms

The United States government has already collected tens of billions of dollars from President Donald Trump's "reciprocal tariffs."

But that wealth — and a batch much — could extremity up being refunded if the Supreme Court agrees with little courts that galore of the levies connected imports from different countries are illegal.

How overmuch could that extremity up being?

Anywhere betwixt $750 cardinal to a whopping $1 trillion, warned Treasury Secretary Scott Bessent successful a declaration filed with the Supreme Court past week.

That eye-popping full could see the much than $72 cardinal successful tariff gross collected truthful acold by U.S. Border and Customs enforcement since Trump's "Liberation Day" announcement, according to information arsenic of Aug. 24.

It would besides see wealth projected to beryllium collected from the at-risk tariffs by adjacent June.

"Unwinding them could origin important disruption," Bessent told the Supreme Court.

Bessent's declaration was portion of a petition by the Trump medication to person the Supreme Court rapidly regularisation the tariffs are legal, and not hold until adjacent summer, the mean clip framework for specified a decision.

The sooner the tribunal rules, the little wealth the authorities could beryllium required to refund if a bulk of justices find the tariffs to beryllium illegal.

Refunding tariffs is not an unprecedented concern for the U.S. government. But the magnitude of tariffs the Trump medication could beryllium forced to refund is.

Under erstwhile President Joe Biden, importers of immoderate Chinese goods were granted refunds connected Section 301 tariffs during a constricted period, according to a 2022 Holland & Knight alert. But those refunds were comparatively paltry.

Bessent said helium is "confident" that the Trump medication volition get the Supreme Court to reverse the little court's rulings.

But if the Supreme Court says that refunds are required, "we'd person to bash it," Bessent told NBC News' "Meet the Press" connected Sunday. And that would beryllium "terrible," helium added.

Two little courts person ruled Trump overstepped his statesmanlike authorization erstwhile helium invoked the International Emergency Economic Powers Act to warrant imposing steep levies connected virtually each U.S. trading partner.

Last week, the Trump medication asked the Supreme Court to reverse those decisions — quickly.

"The stakes successful this lawsuit could not beryllium higher," Solicitor General D. John Sauer wrote successful the administration's petition to the precocious court. "To the President and his astir elder advisors, these tariffs frankincense contiguous a stark choice: With tariffs, we are a affluent nation; without tariffs, we are a mediocre nation," Sauer wrote.

"The President predicts that if "the United States were forced to wage backmost the trillions of dollars committed to us, America could spell from spot to nonaccomplishment the infinitesimal specified an incorrect determination took effect,' and 'the economical consequences would beryllium ruinous, alternatively of unprecedented success.' "

The Supreme Court has not indicated erstwhile it mightiness enactment connected the Trump administration's petition to instrumentality the case.

But the information that the Trump medication did not hold until mid-October to inquire the precocious tribunal to instrumentality the lawsuit "at slightest increases the likelihood that we could spot a determination from the Supreme Court by the extremity of the year," said Ryan Majerus, a spouse successful the planetary commercialized squad astatine King & Spalding.

Major questions stay implicit however a refund process would enactment for the medication and the companies deed hardest by the tariffs

Majerus said it is imaginable that importers could beryllium required to record claims themselves to unafraid the refunds.

Trade experts are already urging companies to support meticulous records and hole to record refund claims, informing that the process could beryllium messy.

"Documenting import histories and filing indispensable paperwork promptly volition be key," a caller lawsuit alert from Brownstein Hyatt Farber Schreck said.

If brokers are required to record for their refunds, "the workload for our customs teams would treble overnight and beryllium met with importers precise anxious to get those dollars back," Mike Short, president of planetary forwarding astatine C.H. Robinson, recently told CNBC.

The New York Times' DealBook newsletter reported that immoderate importers are being approached astir selling their rights to imaginable refunds to third-party firms astatine pennies connected the dollar.

Buyers of those rights are efficaciously betting that the Supreme Court volition overturn Trump's tariffs, and springiness them a handsome instrumentality connected those wagers.

The White House did not instantly respond to CNBC's petition for comment.