By David Lawder
WASHINGTON, Feb 23 (Reuters) – A group of 22 U.S. Senate Democrats on Monday introduced legislation that would require President Donald Trump’s administration to fully refund within 180 days all of the revenue, with interest, collected from tariffs struck down by the U.S. Supreme Court.
The legislation would require the Customs and Border Protection agency, which collects tariffs at U.S. ports of entry, to prioritize small businesses.
The Supreme Court did not give instructions regarding any refunds on Friday when it struck down Trump’s broad tariffs imposed under the International Emergency Economic Powers Act, instead remanding the case to a lower trade court to determine next steps.
The Democrats’ legislation would require CBP to refund all IEEPA-based tariffs unlawfully imposed by Trump, plus interest, even if the import duties were finalized, or “liquidated” by CBP.
The 22 Democrats who co-sponsored the bill included Senate Minority Leader Chuck Schumer and Senators Ron Wyden of Oregon, Edward Markey of Massachusetts and Jeanne Shaheen of New Hampshire, the top Democrats on the Senate’s Finance, Small Business and Foreign Relations committees, respectively.
“Senate Democrats will continue fighting to rein in Donald Trump’s price-hiking trade and economic policies,” Wyden said in a statement. “A crucial first step is helping people who need it most, by putting money back into the pockets of small businesses and manufacturers as soon as possible.”
A spokesperson for Republican Senate Majority Leader John Thune of South Dakota declined to comment on whether the Democrats’ bill would be considered.
But given that the bill was just introduced and needs to go through committee review, a decision on consideration would likely be some ways off.
House of Representatives Speaker Mike Johnson told reporters that the Republican-controlled House would steer clear of the question about returning tariff revenue.
“The White House is going to sort that out, and we have to give them the time and space to do it. This is an unprecedented event, of course, so there’s no playbook to follow,” Johnson, a Louisiana Republican, said. “I think they’ve (the White House) got good arguments on their side, and we’ll see how it shakes out. That’s not something that really involves the House at this point.”
White House spokesperson Kush Desai responded to the legislation by saying Democrats had failed to deliver on their pledges of aiding U.S. manufacturing, ending bad trade deals, and lowering drug prices.
“President Trump used tariffs to actually deliver where Democrats could only talk, so naturally Democrats are rolling up their sleeves to undermine President Trump and the American people – pathetic but unsurprising,” Desai said in an emailed statement.
On Sunday, U.S. Treasury Secretary Scott Bessent said the administration would follow the determination of lower courts on refunds. “We will follow what they decide, but it can take weeks or months until we hear from them,” Bessent said on CNN.
CBP is due to halt collections of the IEEPA tariffs at 12:01 a.m. EST (0501 GMT) on Tuesday.
Reuters reported on Friday that the Supreme Court decision made more than $175 billion IEEPA tariff collections subject to potential refunds, based on an estimate by Penn-Wharton Budget Model economists.
Their estimate from a ground-up forecasting model showed that IEEPA-based tariffs were generating more than $500 million per day in gross revenue.
(Reporting by David Lawder; additional reporting by David Morgan in Washington; editing by Jonathan Oatis)
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