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Businesses big and small have started receiving tariff refunds after the US Supreme Court ruled that President Donald Trump lacked the constitutional authority to impose higher import taxes on goods from nearly every other country. The process could grind to a halt, however, after the Trump administration said Friday that it intended to appeal a federal judge's order to allow all companies that paid the invalidated duties to seek refunds, not just the ones that filed lawsuits. Until the Department of Justice informed the judge of its planned appeal, the refund system overseen by US Customs and Border Protection had been working fairly smoothly. Refunds reached the bank accounts of the first successful applicants on May 12, about three weeks after importers and their customs brokers could start submitting claims through an online system, according to CBP. Applications for refunds totalling USD 85 billion - more than half of the USD 166 billion the agency estimated the government owes
When the Supreme Court killed his favorite tariffs in February, President Donald Trump promptly rolled out temporary import taxes to replace them. But those stopgap levies expire in less than three months. Now the administration is scrambling to put more durable tariffs in place to keep revenue flowing into the US Treasury and to shore up the president's protectionist wall around the American economy. Starting this week, the Office of the US Trade Representative will begin hearings in two investigations that are expected to lead to a new round of US tariffs - taxes paid by importers in the United States and usually passed on via higher prices to consumers who are already fed up with the high cost of living. Trump's newest tariff push is sure to face more challenges in court but is likely to prove sturdier than the one the Supreme Court tossed out. First up is a hearing Tuesday and Wednesday into whether 60 economies - from Nigeria to Norway and accounting for 99% of US imports - do
A team of Indian officials, currently in Washington for talks on the first phase of the bilateral trade agreement, will discuss aspects related to preferential market access for domestic goods in the US, Commerce and Industry Minister Piyush Goyal said on Monday. "We have almost finalised the free trade agreement, the first tranche of the bilateral trade agreement with them. "We are trying to work out what would be the mechanism by which India can get a preferential market access in the US market compared to our competitors," he told reporters here. The Indian team, he said, will discuss these aspects while they are in Washington. About a dozen officers from India are in Washington for three-day trade talks with the US authorities. As the tariff landscape has changed in the US, both sides may like to relook at the framework of the agreement, the text of which was released on February 7. Following the US Supreme Court's decision against the sweeping tariffs imposed by President Do
A refund system for businesses that paid tariffs which the US Supreme Court ruled President Donald Trump imposed without the constitutional authority to do so is scheduled to launch Monday. Importers and their brokers will be able to begin claiming refunds through an online portal beginning at 8 am, according to US Customs and Border Protection (CBP), the agency administering the system. It is the first step in a complicated process that also might eventually lead to refunds for consumers who were billed for some or all of the tariffs on products shipped to them from outside the United States. Companies must submit declarations listing the goods on which they collectively put billions of dollars toward the import taxes the court subsequently struck down. If CBP approves a claim, it will take 60-90 days for a refund to be issued, the agency said. The government expects to process refunds in phases, however, focusing first on more recent tariff payments. Any number of technical facto
A USD 656 million judgment against Palestinian authorities has been reinstated by appeals judges, following a US Supreme Court ruling in favour of Americans killed or wounded in attacks in Israel. The decision from the 2nd US Circuit Court of Appeals comes a decade after it first tossed out a verdict against the Palestine Liberation Organisation and the Palestinian Authority on the grounds that US courts couldn't consider lawsuits against foreign groups over overseas attacks that were not aimed at the United States. But the appeals court reinstated the judgment in light of a Supreme Court ruling last June upholding a 2019 law enacted by Congress to allow the victims' lawsuits to go forward against the Palestine Liberation Organisation and the Palestinian Authority. "We conclude that the original judgment for the plaintiffs should be reinstated. That conclusion is consistent with the plain import of the Supreme Court's decision," the judges said in a decision dated March 30. "Our ..
The Supreme Court seemed poised Wednesday to reject US President Donald Trump's restrictions on birthright citizenship in a momentous case that was magnified by his unparalleled presence in the courtroom. Conservative and liberal justices questioned whether Trump's order declaring that children born to parents who are in the United States illegally or temporarily are not American citizens comports with either the Constitution or federal law. Arguments lasted more than two hours in a crowded courtroom that included not only Trump, the first sitting president to attend arguments at the nation's highest court, but also Attorney General Pam Bondi and Commerce Secretary Howard Lutnick, and in seats reserved for the justices' guests, actor Robert De Niro. The case frames another test of Trump's assertions of executive power that defy long-standing precedent for a court with a conservative majority and a robust view of presidential power, which has largely ruled in the Republican president
The Supreme Court grappled Tuesday with whether the Trump administration should be able to revive an immigration policy that has been used to turn back migrants seeking asylum at the US-Mexico border. Some conservative justices seemed receptive to the Justice Department's push to overturn a lower-court ruling against the practice known as metering. Immigration authorities limited the number of people who could apply for asylum, saying it was necessary to handle an increase at the border. Advocates say the policy created a humanitarian crisis during President Donald Trump's first term as people who were turned away settled in makeshift camps in Mexico as they waited for a chance to seek asylum. The policy isn't in place now, and Trump ordered a wider suspension of the asylum system at the start of his second term. The administration, though, argues that metering remains a "critical tool" used under administrations from both parties, and should be available if necessary in the ...
President Donald Trump is scrambling to replace the revenue the federal government lost when the Supreme Court struck down his biggest and boldest tariffs last month. If the effort succeeds, congressional Democrats warn in a study out Friday, the administration's import taxes will cost American households an average of $2,512 in 2026, up 44% from $1,745 in tariff costs last year. And this at a time when U.S. consumers are already angry over the high cost of living and the war with Iran is pushing up energy prices. "Despite a Supreme Court ruling that much of Trump's tariff agenda is illegal, the Trump administration refuses to provide relief for families," said Sen. Maggie Hassan of New Hampshire, the top Democrat on the Joint Economic Committee. "As American families continue to struggle with high costs, the President keeps choosing to institute new tariffs that will push prices even higher." Calling the study "phony," White House spokesman Kush Desai said "President Trump will ...