The day after the Supreme Court struck down Trump’s tariffs as illegal, Treasury Secretary Scott Bessent was asked what would happen to the money already collected. His answer: Americans “won’t see” it.
He was mostly right. Most of the people who paid these tariffs will not see the money back. Most of the companies that imported the goods will.
Americans paid the tariffs.
Throughout the tariff fight, Trump repeatedly said that the cost would not be passed on to consumers. The companies collecting the money say otherwise.
Capri Holdings, Nike, Levi Strauss, Procter & Gamble, Columbia Sportswear, Build-A-Bear, and McCormick all told investors they raised prices because of the tariffs. Yale’s Budget Lab, an independent economic think tank, found that 61 to 80 percent of the tariff cost on core goods was passed through to consumer prices as of this summer.
The Choice Belongs to the Company
When a company imports goods, its broker files an entry with U.S. Customs and Border Protection declaring the tariff owed. Customs already has that entry on file. It looks up what the company was charged, subtracts the tariff amount, and refunds the difference. No new paperwork required. The government collected roughly $166 billion under these tariffs; about $129 billion of that has been approved for refund so far, all through this same importer-based process.
So it’s up to each company to decide whether to refund consumers, and how.
Some companies have good customer records, which makes this straightforward. Not all of them are choosing to use them. FedEx and UPS bill by shipment, so when the refund comes in, they will reverse specific charges on specific accounts. Some health care companies have the same kind of records: Medline, GE HealthCare, Solventum, Baxter, and Cardinal Health all sell to hospitals under contract, with itemized invoices. Only two of the five, Medline and Cardinal Health, have returned any money, and only partially.
Companies that sell to millions of anonymous customers have a harder problem to solve. Some aren’t trying very hard to solve it. Nintendo said consumers “agreed” to the tariff-driven price when they made the purchase and are therefore “not entitled” to any refund. Of the roughly fifteen major companies that have disclosed how much they received in refunds, only a handful, including Costco, which told investors its “commitment will be to find the best way to return this value” to members, have said anything about what they plan to do with it. Nintendo’s position is closer to the norm than Costco’s.
Nothing Is in Place to Help Consumers
Nothing is currently in place to help consumers. They’re left holding the bag, and the government seems unable, or unwilling, to do anything about it.
The Federal Trade Commission no longer has the authority to get money back for consumers, a result of a 2021 Supreme Court ruling. Efforts to pass legislation requiring companies to make consumers whole for any refunds they receive are going nowhere in Congress.
Twenty-three states tried to sue on behalf of residents who’d paid higher prices from a similar tariff, and the courts said they couldn’t: they hadn’t suffered the kind of direct harm required to sue at all.
Since the court would not give standing to the states, three individuals have filed class actions instead, each trying to represent everyone who was charged the same way they were. A New York shopper sued Five Below after the company wouldn’t say what it planned to do with its refund. A customer sued the parent company of Ray-Ban and Oakley over a tariff surcharge it continued to charge even after the tariffs were struck down. A South Carolina customs broker sued FedEx and UPS directly, arguing that even the fees stacked on top of the tariff itself were never lawfully owed. None of these cases has been decided yet. Companies are fighting them hard, and legal analysts are genuinely split on whether they’ll succeed, but six months in, none has been thrown out either.
This Was a Choice
The government illegally took money from millions of Americans, admitted the money shouldn’t have been collected, and is now returning it to the corporations that collected it instead of the people who actually paid it. No federal agency, no bill in Congress, and no court has been willing or able to change that.
Trump didn’t have to do it this way. He used a tool that let him impose these tariffs without asking Congress, the same Congress controlled by his own party, and without building any mechanism for the money to find its way back to the people it came from.
Endnotes
1. Bessent’s “won’t see it” comment and “bad framing” exchange: The Hill, Bessent Avoids Questions on Tariff Refunds
2. Supreme Court ruling that IEEPA did not authorize the tariffs: Ropes & Gray, Supreme Court Strikes Down IEEPA Tariffs: Key Takeaways and Implications for Importers
3. Companies raising prices because of tariffs (Capri, Nike, Levi Strauss, Procter & Gamble, Columbia Sportswear): CBS News, Walmart and Other Big Companies Say Tariffs Are Forcing Them to Hike Prices
4. Tariff cost passthrough rate of 61–80 percent on core goods: Yale Budget Lab, The Short-Run Effects of 2025 Tariffs So Far
5. Total tariffs collected ($166 billion) and refund process: California Department of Justice, Attorney General Bonta Urges Congress to Fix Trump’s Tariff Mess and Refund Americans
6. Medline refund and customer return figures: Medline Q2 2026 results, Medline Reports Second Quarter and First Six Months 2026 Results
7. Cardinal Health refund and customer pass-through: Cardinal Health Q4 2026 earnings call, Cardinal Health (CAH) Q4 2026 Earnings Call Transcript
8. Nintendo’s “not entitled” position, Amazon and Costco refund approaches: Newsweek, Tariff Refunds Split Companies as Consumers Demand Share of $166B
9. FTC’s Section 13(b) refund authority stripped by the Supreme Court in 2021, and Chair Ferguson’s response under questioning: Senate Commerce Committee, Cantwell to Trump FTC Chair: Protect Consumers, Not the President’s Allies
10. Tariff Relief for Consumers Act (H.R. 7822) text and status: Congress.gov, H.R.7822 — 119th Congress: Tariff Relief for Consumers Act
11. Section 122 tariff struck down by the Court of International Trade, and the standing ruling for the 23 states versus the three direct-payer plaintiffs: Skadden, US Trade Court Strikes Down Section 122 Tariffs
12. Private class action landscape and legal theories (unjust enrichment, breach of contract): Foley & Lardner, After Learning Resources: Defending Against the Wave of Consumer Class Actions Seeking Tariff Refunds
13. Individual plaintiffs (Anastopoulo v. FedEx/UPS, related suits) and case status as of mid-August 2026: FreightWaves, FedEx, UPS, Oakley Face Lawsuits Over Trump Tariff Refunds
14. Collapse of U.S.–Canada trade talks and new 50 percent tariffs: NPR, As Canada Readies Retaliatory Tariffs, Mark Carney Says His Nation Is ‘At War’ With U.S.