Trump Stole Our Money

And we want it back.

In a tantrum that would make actual 2-year-old blush, Donald Trump on Friday hollered at the Supreme Court for holding that the International Emergency Economic Powers Act, which does not mention tariffs, does not empower him to unilaterally impose tariffs, a power the Constitution explicitly accorded to Congress. Moreover, he announced another likely illegal gambit to pick our pockets.

Trump’s minions pawed through the statute book to come up with Section 122 of the Trade Act of 1974. Trump declared 10% — no, make it 15%! — tariffs across the board. That provision authorizes the president to impose sanctions for 150 days, but only for the purpose of addressing “large and serious balance of payments deficits.” That is not a reference to the trade deficit.

(wildpixel/iStock)

The Cato Institute explains (emphasis in original):

The current account — which captures trade in goods and services — is merely a subset of the broader balance of payments, which also includes capital flows and financial transactions. Crucially, in a world of floating exchange rates, a true balance-of-payments deficit is virtually impossible: when a country runs a current account deficit, capital inflows necessarily offset it, keeping the overall balance of payments near zero by construction. The US runs a persistent current account deficit, but that is not the same thing as a balance-of-payments deficit, and conflating the two would represent a significant distortion of the statute’s terms.

It is bad enough that Trump keeps concocting ways to pick out pockets; worse, he won’t return the money already snatched, despite the Supreme Court’s ruling striking down the IEEPA tariffs. Treasury Secretary Scott Bessent lied when he told CNN that tariff refunds are “not up to the administration, it is up to the lower court.”

The court will have to decide only because the administration will not voluntarily give back money it illegally took from U.S. businesses and consumers. The administration could cooperate with Congress in fashioning a remedy; it could unilaterally devise a refund process. Instead, by holding onto the ill-gotten gains, Trump is perpetuating the injury — playing the float, if you will.

Well, that is not going to work. “FedEx filed a lawsuit on Monday demanding a refund of the U.S. tariffs that the Supreme Court ruled were unlawful last week,” the New York Times reported. “The lawsuit, filed in the U.S. Court of International Trade, asks that Customs and Border Protection, the agency that collects tariffs, make the repayment to FedEx.” FedEx joins a long list of companies, including Costco and Alcoa, that sued to get their money back. Other lawsuits filed by individual companies, states, consumers, and/or associations will follow.

The greatest burden from tariffs may have fallen on small businesses, which have struggled to stay in business during Trump’s trade war on them and consumers. A coalition of 900 small businesses issued a letter this week demanding that “small businesses receive full, automatic, and fast refunds of all unlawfully collected tariff payments.” Their letter details the economic turmoil Trump has unleashed:

American small businesses—not foreign governments — paid billions of dollars in IEEPA tariffs. We have dipped into personal savings, taken out high-interest loans, laid off employees, and cut wages to cover costs that were never lawfully imposed. Now that the Supreme Court has struck down these tariffs, every dollar collected must be returned.​ …

We cannot afford to hire lawyers, navigate complex claims processes, or spend months filing paperwork to recover money that never should have been collected. The government has records of every tariff payment. Refunds must be automatic, meaning that they are issued directly to importers of record without requiring individual applications.

​Estimates of the amount owed range from $135 billion to $264 billion.

As a real estate mogul, Trump continually stiffed contractors, daring them to sue to recover what was owed to them. He then dragged out the litigation and tried to settle for pennies on the dollar. Having seen this scam before, the small business community demands he not string them along and instead “direct Customs and Border Protection to begin issuing refunds immediately using existing payment records.” If legislation is needed, it implored Congress to act “without delay.”

Democrats have denounced Trump for treating American businesses and consumers as badly as he used to treat his vendors. Senate Finance Committee Ranking Member. Ron Wyden (D-OR), Small Business Committee Ranking Member Sen. Edward J. Markey (D-MA), and Foreign Relations Committee Ranking Member Sen. Jeanne Shaheen (D-NH) introduced a bill on Monday to require a full refund of an estimated $175 billion (plus interest) within 180 days and to “prioritize small businesses when paying refunds.”

Several points are worth noting. First, let’s not forget that Trump is corruptly stuffing his own pockets and sucking up crypto currency in the greatest display of self-dealing the country has ever experienced at the very time he refuses to return tens of billions he had no right to snatch and as continues to unilaterally implement even more taxes by way of tariffs. Every Democrat would be wise to amplify that message. (No wonder Trump thinks the state of the union is so swell.)

Second, the refund fight should settle once and for all who was paying the tariffs. It’s not China that is suing to get money back. The money was paid by Americans, who now want to recoup their losses. Trump lied repeatedly on this topic; Democrats need to remind voters that Trump’s entire tariff plan was a bait-and-switch scheme.

Third, governors (especially ones likely to run for president in 2028) are championing the refund cause. California Gov. Gavin Newsom said on social media: “Time to pay the piper, Donald. These tariffs were nothing more than an illegal cash grab that drove up prices and hurt working families, so you could wreck longstanding alliances and extort them. Every dollar unlawfully taken must be refunded immediately — with interest. Cough up!” In a similar vein, Illinois Gov. J.B. Pritzker sent Trump a bill and put out a video demanding Trump refund every family $1,700 (“Cut the check, Donald!”).

As with redistricting and National Guard deployments, the tariff refund fight gives aggressive governors the chance to fight back against Trump’s anti-democratic and/or illegal actions in defense of their own residents. That frankly gives them a leg up on House and Senate Democrats who can rarely convert their demands into concrete actions. The difference between a singular state chief executive and one of 535 members of Congress is stark.

The bottom line: Trump illegally grabbed our wallets. His refusal to give the money back — and, worse, to invent a new pretext to take more — is emblematic of a presidency that is one long grift on behalf of himself and his oligarch enablers.

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