The U.S. Court of International Trade (USCIT) ruled that the Trump administration must issue refunds to companies for recently struck down tariffs issued under the International Emergency Economic Powers Act.

According to the Associated Press, USCIT Judge Richard Eaton said in his ruling that all importers of record are entitled to benefit from the U.S. Supreme Court's decision to nullify President Donald Trump's IEEPA tariffs in February. The Supreme Court did not address the issue of refunds when it overturned the levies, leaving lower courts to determine how the billions of dollars collected in duties should be returned to importers.

This comes after a federal district court rejected a request from the Trump administration to delay the tariff refund process by 90 days, which cleared the way for the USCIT to issue its own decision on a refund case brought by Tennessee-based company Atmus Filtration. The Penn Wharton Budget Model estimates that the federal government could owe businesses at least $175 billion in refunds including interest. More than 2,000 tariff refund cases have been submitted with the USCIT since the Supreme Court struck down Trump's IEEPA levies.

If the Trump administration decides not to challenge the USCIT's decision, U.S. Customs and Border Protection would be tasked with processing the refunds. However, trade lawyers caution that the logistics of calculating and distributing those refunds could still take time to fully resolve, given the volume of claims and the lack of clear administrative guidance on how the payments should be handled.

"Based on historical precedent, importers should be prepared for a process that takes months to years, not weeks," said Chang Law Group principal attorney Jeff Chang in a March 4 blog post.