FedEx filed a lawsuit in the U.S. Court of International Trade seeking a refund for President Trump's tariffs, many of which were deemed illegal in February by the U.S. Supreme Court. Subsequently, FedEx's customers filed a class action lawsuit against FedEx over import duties on products they said should have entered the United States duty-free.
Yup, it's a legitimate clusterfuck. But wait, there's more!
More than 1,000 U.S. companies have filed lawsuits to recoup what they paid on imports including Dyson, Dollar General, Bausch & Lomb, Brooks Brothers, Sol de Janeiro, L'Oreal, Skechers, and EssilorLuxottica. Of course, let's not forget Costco, Revlon, and Kawasaki either, which kicked off their lawsuits at the end of last year.
Reuters reports that more than $175B in U.S. tariff collections are subject to potential refunds, which is a lot of money up for grabs — at least for the companies. It's doubtful that refunds will trickle down to consumers, who ultimately got hit with the bill through higher product prices. Not to mention the fact that litigation will likely take years, and at this point the cost of tariffs is permanently baked into goods, whether companies continue to pay future tariffs or not.
Senate Democrats are calling for the government to issue refunds directly to consumers over the course of 180 days and pay interest on the refunded amount, but that's a long shot.
Meanwhile, despite his IEEPA tariffs being deemed illegal by the Supreme Court, President Trump issued new 10% tariffs, this time under Section 122 of the Trade Act of 1974 which allows the President to impose tariffs of up to 15% for up to 150 days to address trade deficits. Later he said he would raise them to 15%. Trade agreements be damned.