Trump's pissed...SCOTUS Tariffs ruling didn't include "one little sentence that the money doesn't have to be paid back"

[Miles Archer]

Why John Roberts didn’t write the ‘one little sentence’ Trump wants on tariffs
The government acknowledged during the tariffs litigation that it would be on the hook for refunds, with interest, if it lost.

Illustration of Jordan Rubin
Mar. 26, 2026, 11:22 AM

https://www.ms.now/deadline-white-house/deadline-legal-blog/trump-tariffs-roberts-gorsuch-barrett

On top of continuing his tirade against Justices Neil Gorsuch and Amy Coney Barrett, two of his appointees who ruled against him — “They sicken me,” the president said — Trump remains confounded by the fact that the government must refund the tariff money it illegally collected.

He complained that the 6-3 ruling from February, authored by Chief Justice John Roberts, “didn’t want to put one little sentence that all money taken in up ’til this day doesn’t have to be paid back.”

It’s true that the majority didn’t address refunds. That led Trump’s other high court appointee, Brett Kavanaugh, to observe in dissent that the court “says nothing today about whether, and if so how, the Government should go about returning the billions of dollars that it has collected from importers.”

But the president should keep in mind, or be informed by his staff, that government lawyers had acknowledged that refunds would issue if the Supreme Court were to deem the tariffs illegal. For example, in convincing the lower courts not to halt the tariffs while litigation proceeded toward the justices, government lawyers wrote that there’d be no harm to plaintiffs because, if the administration were to lose in the end, then plaintiffs “will assuredly receive payment on their refund with interest.”

[ProfessorGAC]

1. Stupid Argument

If the collection of money has been found to be extralegal, the body collecting said fees has no right to them.
This nonsense about the "one little sentence" is idiotic.
It's not the government's money. Of course it has to be returned. Once they have been determined to be illegally obtained, there is no need to specifically call for a refund.

[NEOH]

2. Oh, Cry Me a River...

Oh, cry me a river you orange shit banana...

[genxlib]

3. I don't see how it is possible to completely pay it back

There is no good way to get it back into the hands of the consumers except maybe on large purchases.

I just don't see anyway that we will ever see individual refunds on the average purchase. Maybe cars, appliances and furniture but your average $10 item at Walmart is a lost cause.

It would be a logistical and and accounting nightmare and will never be correct. If an importer paid more fertilizer, who gets to keep the refund? the importer? the farmer? the farmers market/grocery? the shopper?. Some of these products will have passed through or impacted prices at a dozen different levels. It can't be done on this scale.

Knowing that, it just looks like it would be a windfall for the importers.

[Jerry2144]

4. The only idea I could come up with

Is figuring out the total amount taken by the illegal tariffs, then divide it by the number of people in this country. It could then be a refundable income tax credit next year. And a family of four, filing jointly, would get 4 times what a single person gets.

It would stimulate the economy and be easier to implement than each person trying to find receipts and claiming it or refunding all the money to the importers without requiring them to pay it out to their customers.

[SheltieLover]

5. I would think it would be a rather simple matter of refunds to cards charged for goods. Cash would be another matter.

Fed-Ex has supposedly vowed to refund tariffs to consumers when they get refund.

[genxlib]

6. In a case like that it would work

Essentially it would only be for stuff you ordered directly from oversees. In effect, the consumer is the importer so the refund is fairly direct through the shipping company. Messy but doable.

I was really thinking about the more typical case of buying something from a store. There are multiple levels of companies handling it. Not to mention that it might not be a one-to-one ratio since multiple levels might have eaten some of the cost so not all would have been passed all the way to the consumer.

That doesn't even begin to describe the complications of components. You could buy something assembled in the states that might have components from many countries. Even base materials like wood and aluminum were affected. There are just so many layers it seems impossible to tease apart

[Ms. Toad]

10. The importers of record paid the tarrif, they are the ones who are legally entitled to a refund.

The importer of a manufactured item may, or may not have passed it on to the consumer. A given product manufactured in the US may have numerous components on which tariffs were paid. The importer of record may have passed it on to the manufacturer, who may - or may not have passed it on to the consumer. But the consumer did not pay the tariff. It bought a product at the current market price.

Legally, it is irrelevant that the price was influenced by tariffs. It was charging the tariff that was illegal - not how much the importer of record decided to charge it's customers, or what the customer "willingly" paid for the product.

[LetMyPeopleVote]

7. MS NOW- This no-nonsense judge is working to resolve Trump's $165 billion tariff mess

Judge Richard Eaton of the relatively obscure Court of International Trade appears to be holding the administration accountable after the Supreme Court struck down the president’s tariffs.

Link to tweet

https://www.ms.now/opinion/trump-tariff-judge-supreme-court

While one might think this was a recipe for mischief, an unlikely hero has arisen, Judge Richard Eaton of that court, who appears to be holding the administration’s feet to the fire and does not appear like he is about to tolerate many shenanigans should the administration seek to drag those feet in an effort to evade the law.

While Trump administration officials may have believed they could tie the case up in the courts for months, even years, Eaton has different thoughts about how, and when, to refund those who paid these illegal tariffs, and he has laid it all out in two opinions spanning no more than six pages of text combined.

At a time when lawyers and judges gravitate toward complex reasoning, obscuring jargon and legal briefs and opinions that seemingly go on forever, Eaton has taught a masterclass in simple, concise and clear language. What this straightforward approach has done is not only made it patently clear what the administration’s legal obligations are, he has left little wiggle room for the administration to avoid reparations.

Eaton, a 77-year-old jurist who once served as a village justice in rural upstate New York, has taken the reins of this sprawling, high-stakes legal battle. In the case of Atmus Filtration, Inc. v. United States, the plaintiff is seeking an immediate refund of the payments it made under the illegal tariff scheme. Eaton’s first opinion in the case is a model of judicial brevity and clarity. And he has also shown no patience for bureaucratic stonewalling.

The first decision was issued on March 4, 2026. Importers across the country may have been bracing for a convoluted, multiyear slog to get their money back, but Eaton quickly eased those fears. In a simple, three-page order, he directed Customs and Border Protection to refund the illegal tariffs paid by American companies......

When it too often seems like the legal system is paralyzed by procedural gamesmanship and judicial opinions frequently span hundreds of pages, and sometimes constitute tales of sound and fury signifying little, Eaton’s approach is a breath of fresh air. His rulings demonstrate that the most effective jurisprudence is often the most direct. He saw a problem — billions of dollars in illegally collected taxes and an administration reluctant to return them — and he used his court’s unique jurisdictional power to solve it.

He didn’t write for the history books, even as he made history; he wrote to get American businesses their money back and to protect American taxpayers from footing a multibillion-dollar interest bill.

The Constitution requires that tariffs be lawful, and the Supreme Court has confirmed that these were not. But rights without remedies are meaningless. Thanks to the brevity, clarity and undeniable courage of a seasoned judge in lower Manhattan, who no doubt has seen his share of litigant mischief in his court for decades, the rule of law is being enforced in as straightforward and efficient a manner as possible.

In a world where the courts must serve as a significant check on abuses of power, particularly executive power, we need more judges like Eaton: those with the courage, and the willingness, to, in the words of Chief Justice John Marshall from over 200 years ago, “say what the law is” and to do so in a concise, fair, clear and accessible manner.

trump was hoping to delay the repayment of these illegal tariffs for a long time. This judge had rejected trump's attempts and importers will be seeing refunds sooner than trump wanted

[LetMyPeopleVote]

8. In order to get a stay of the ruling on tariffs, trump's attorneys had to promise to refund all tariffs

trump is an idiot and does not realize that on his behalf his attorneys told the court that all illegal tariffs had to be refunded. trump's attorneys had to make the legal commitment to refund all tariffs in order to get a stay of the rulings on trump's tariffs. The court of appeals issued the stay of the two injunctions based on the agreement by the trump administration to refund all tariffs if the ruling of these two courts are upheld on appeal. 

Link to tweet

Link to tweet

BREAKING - Trump admin pledges to refund tariffs: Donald Trump’s Justice Department persuaded the U.S. Court of Appeals to stay the lower court’s injunction on his emergency tariffs—after pledging to refund anyone who paid them if it ultimately loses. In its filings, the government stated, “If tariffs imposed on plaintiffs during these appeals are ultimately held unlawful, then the government will issue refunds to plaintiffs, including any post-judgment interest that accrues.” The court granted the stay.

[uncle ray]

9. that money should be held in escrow for the next Democratic President and Congress to fix this mess.

since there's no way to effectively and fairly refund it to the people who originally paid, US.