Trumpy Dumpty must be having a fit over this. He doesn’t want to give the tariff money back. And we might not be able to return it. This is unsettling. It’s another ETTD, except it’s going to affect all of us, and he’ll do his damndest not to let it affect him. The thoughts of what he’s done to our country are infuriating, so this is another one to add to the list. With appreciation for Raw Story:
The Trump administration’s online portal for processing refunds on tariffs struck down by the Supreme Court will only handle approximately 63 percent of 53 million import entries when it debuts, according to a court filing submitted Tuesday. U.S. Customs and Border Protection officials told the U.S. Court of International Trade that the system cannot process refund claims for the remaining one-third of entries immediately, without providing a timeline for subsequent phases, reported Bloomberg. The agency previously committed to having the first phase operational by mid-April.
This does not give me warm fuzzy feelings of confidence. We (finally) have to pay that money back, which shouldn’t have been ours in the first place, and we might not be able to return all of it. The countries that don’t get their money back may say to hail with working with the United States. I’m surprised we had any imports at all after Dumbass Donnie started this. We’ve paid for it. The people have paid for it all. We can’t give the money back. Companies probably *won’t* give the money back, and prices will stay ridiculous. Why are we the only ones who get screwed?
The Supreme Court declared Trump’s tariff executive orders unlawful in February, determining that importers paid more than $166 billion under the contested levies. The government has committed to providing interest payments alongside refunds. The initial phase will process tariffs that have not yet become “final” — a designation typically occurring more than a year after goods enter the country. However, this limitation has created complications for importers facing “final” tariffs, which automatically reach that status unless companies file costly and time-consuming protests.
Even if they win the case, they may not get all of the tariffs and the legal fees back. That comes right down on us again. You know they’ll want to make up that money somehow. It’s not like the American people aren’t struggling already. It gets worse every day. We the People are disregarded. We the People are screwed in so many ways. Tariffs, Iran War, ICE/CBP, and those are just off the top of my head. If we can’t buy food at the grocery store, we certainly can’t go out to eat. That hurts businesses, small ones that have closed, large ones that have raised prices sky-high. We’re not a part of these considerations.
U.S. Court of International Trade Judge Richard Eaton, overseeing the tariff refund litigation, initially ordered the government to recalculate tariffs but did not initially include “final” duties. After companies raised concerns about ongoing automatic tariff finalization, he expanded his order to include those tariffs as well. The administration has registered more than 26,000 importers to receive electronic refunds, representing approximately $120 billion in challenged tariffs. The case, Atmus Filtration Inc. v. United States, has become the lead litigation for tariff refund disputes.
That’s more than I expected and shows how little I know about imports. I worked with a company decades ago that had imports. It‘s probably unrecognizable now, when compared to that. Let me tell you, watching a port at work was amazing, fascinating, and a little scary. You don’t really get the scale of cargo ships in pictures. All those ships and all those containers are for people importing goods. (We’re not going into exports because I have absolutely no data on how that works.) But really, it all comes down on us, and I’m tired of it.
See you soon!
Friends, I know everyone begs you for money. I promise that among all those asking for spare change, we are the smallest and the hardest-working. We’re a group of old, disabled people, except for one writer in his mid-50s. The rest of us are in our sixties and seventies, and this is a labor of love. All we’re asking for is the chance to keep telling the truth about Trump and help ensure democracy survives. If you can help, please do. Thank you. Ursula
