President Donald Trump said he will remember the companies that don’t seek tariff refunds after the Supreme Court ruled his emergency trade taxes were illegal.
Earlier this week, U.S. Customs and Border Protection launched a web portal where importers can request more than $160 billion in potential refunds for tariffs Trump passed under the International Emergency Economic Powers Act.
Even though companies can go and recoup what they’ve been taxed, Trump hopes they won’t.
Some massive companies like Apple and Amazon haven’t requested refunds yet. Trump was asked on CNBC’s Squawk Box if a large company seeking a tariff refund would offend him.
“Brilliant if they don’t do that,” Trump said of companies seeking tariff refunds. “Actually, if they don’t do that, they’ve got to know me very well. I’m very honored by what you just said.”
Trump went on to say that if the companies don’t request tariff refunds, “I’ll remember them.”
The president will also no doubt remember the Supreme Court, which delivered the 6-3 decision naming the tariffs he passed under the IEEPA as illegal.
He complained to CNBC that the Supreme Court’s February ruling did not include language allowing him to keep the hundreds of billions collected from U.S. importers.
“So, I’m not happy with the Supreme Court, I’ll be honest with you,” Trump said.
In a Truth Social post after the ruling, Trump described the decision as “an unnecessary and expensive slap in the face to the U.S.A., and a giant victory for its opponents,”
While the world’s largest companies may be able to take a multi-million-dollar hit to get on Trump’s good side, many smaller importers will no doubt jump at the chance to claw back some of what they lost under his tariffs.
Levi Strauss’s Chief Financial Officer Harmit Singh told CNBC earlier this month that the clothing company expects to receive approximately $80 million in tariff refunds.
Gap CFO Katrina O’Connell told CNBC in March that the tariffs’ impact had been “significant to our performance” and said the company was considering seeking a refund.
Thousands of companies, including Costco and FedEx, have filed lawsuits in the Court of International Trade to protect their right to seek a refund, even if Trump tries to challenge the Supreme Court ruling, the LA Times reports.
Trump has indicated that even if his reciprocal tariffs were ruled illegal, he plans to find another way to enforce them as a key part of his trade agenda.
According to an analysis published by the Peterson Institute for International Economics, Trump is likely to replace the tariffs he issued illegally under the IEEPA with tariffs under other statutes, with a likely candidate being Section 301 of the Trade Act of 1974.
Under its standard, Trump need only determine that a foreign government’s actions or policies are “unreasonable” or “unjustifiable” and that they “burden the United States” to justify the imposition of a tariff.
Using Section 301 to impose tariffs has been upheld by the Court of International Trade and the U.S. Federal Circuit Court as recently as September 2025.
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