Trump Administration Being ‘pragmatic’ On Tariff Refunds, Former Officials Say

Veterans of the Biden and first Trump administration are giving the White House relatively high marks for its handling of the tariff refund process — so far.

The Trump administration made some initial attempts to slow-walk the repayment of billions of dollars in tariffs invalidated by the Supreme Court last month.

But the White House has shown no signs of abandoning its obligations, said Everett Eissenstat, deputy director of the National Economic Council in Trump’s first term, during a panel at POLITICO’s Economy Summit in Washington.

“I think this is going to happen. Refunds are going to be made,” said Eissenstat, now a partner at Squire Patton Boggs. “When? That’s the big question. I wish I had the answer.“

U.S. Customs and Border Protection made headlines and drew skepticism in early March when it asked for a 45-day extension to begin the tariff refund process. The agency said that its current system “isn’t quite equipped to handle the huge numbers of refunds” owed to businesses and consumers, said Greta Peisch, general counsel for the Office of the U.S. Trade Representative under President Joe Biden.

But Peisch added that, “To date, the government has actually been pretty pragmatic. They are arguing that they need a little bit of time to set up a system to process the volume of refunds that are at issue here.”

“My view is it is better than expected,” she said of the Trump administration’s refund response.

The Supreme Court ruled Feb. 20 that the president did not have the power to impose tariffs under the International Emergency Economic Powers Act, striking down a large chunk of the duties the president imposed last year on countries around the world. The administration is now endeavoring to reestablish many of those tariffs under different statutes, with the president arguing the Supreme Court gave him explicit authority to enact duties by virtually any means other than the 1977 IEEPA law.

Almost immediately after the Supreme Court’s ruling, Trump signed an executive order invoking Section 122 of the 1974 Trade Act to reinstate 10 percent tariffs on U.S. trading partners.

Eissenstat called it a “bridge to a new regime” that the administration hopes to pull together by initiating investigations — and then permanent tariff levies — under Section 301 of the Trade Act.

“They did a lot of stuff with IEEPA,” he said. “Raising revenues, doing these framework agreements, these agreements on reciprocal trade in conjunction with the 232 National Security tariffs. Transitioning from one statue to another and trying to reconstruct a regime like that, it's complicated.”