When the highest court in the land ruled that President Donald Trump’s tariffs under the International Emergency Economic Powers Act crossed a constitutional line, it triggered a strange kind of financial chaos. Somewhere between $130 billion and $200 billion sits in limbo—money extracted from importers under a law the justices deemed misapplied. The February 20 ruling didn’t come with instructions. It left U.S. Customs and Border Protection, importers, and a constellation of lawyers trying to figure out who gets paid back, how, and when.
I’ve covered policy reversals in half a dozen countries. This feels different. The sums are staggering, the legal mechanics Byzantine, and the stakes existential for mid-sized manufacturers already operating on thin margins. What surprised me most wasn’t the court’s decision—legal scholars had been telegraphing doubts for months—but how unprepared the system was to undo what it had enforced so aggressively.
Mark Baran, managing director for CBIZ Inc.’s national tax office, put it plainly during a recent interview. “Everyone wants their damn refund, but they don’t know how to do it yet,” he said. “There is still a lot of uncertainty.” That uncertainty is driving companies toward courtrooms, even when litigation might not be necessary. It’s also exposing fractures in how customs enforcement actually works—and who bears the cost when the rules change overnight.
U.S. Customs and Border Protection is building a digital workaround called the Consolidated Administration and Processing of Entries, or CAPE, embedded within its Automated Commercial Environment. According to Reuters, a CBP official told the U.S. Court of International Trade on March 31 that the system was roughly 60 to 85 percent complete. The agency originally hoped to launch by late April. Even when functional, processing each refund application could take around 45 days. For companies that paid duties back in February or April of 2025, that’s months of capital frozen in federal accounts.
The refund machinery hinges on a process called liquidation. Most people outside trade law have never heard of it. Here’s how it works: when goods cross the border, importers pay estimated duties upfront. Customs later calculates the final amount owed through liquidation, typically around 314 days after entry. If you overpaid, you’re supposed to get money back. If you underpaid, you get a bill. Once liquidation happens, importers have 180 days to file a protest. Miss that window, and the assessment becomes final.
Judge Richard Eaton of the Court of International Trade issued an order on March 27 directing CBP to liquidate or reliquidate all entries subject to the now-illegal IEEPA tariffs. That directive could bypass the protest system entirely, sparing importers from filing individual challenges. But the word “could” is doing a lot of work. Many companies aren’t waiting to find out. They’re suing.
Detroit Axle, a Ferndale-based aftermarket auto parts dealer, filed suit in May claiming the tariffs threatened to put it out of business. Costco Wholesale and Goodyear Tire & Rubber Co. followed. Thousands more have joined since the Supreme Court ruling. Chris Duncan, tariff and customs counsel at Squire Patton Boggs, believes many lawsuits are defensive. “Some companies may have done so proactively because of liquidation situations or to put pressure on the government,” he said. Others see litigation as insurance against bureaucratic failure.
Duncan’s firm hasn’t filed any lawsuits yet. He advises clients to track liquidation dates and file protests instead. “If you file protests, you are absolutely protected and will be able to collect that money eventually,” he said. Judge Eaton’s orders, he notes, have been explicit: protests are the clearest path to refunds. But not everyone is convinced. John Paul Lucci, Cleveland partner-in-charge for Hahn Loeser & Parks, said some of his clients shifted from wait-and-see mode to full litigation in recent days. “Clients choosing the litigation path are doing so to combat uncertainty and to position themselves as first in line,” he explained.
The refund process isn’t just about legal strategy. There are technical steps companies need to take now. As of February 6, CBP is using the Automated Clearing House exclusively for refunds. That means businesses must have an active ACE Portal account with ACH authorization. Baran called it the bare minimum. “Everyone should be doing that,” he said. For importers juggling multiple entries across different tariff waves, tracking liquidation dates and organizing documentation is urgent work. Miss a deadline, and legal recourse narrows fast.
But importers of record—the entities that physically brought goods across the border—are only part of the picture. Retailers, distributors, and manufacturers who absorbed tariff costs through higher supplier prices occupy a legal gray zone. Some have sued their suppliers. Others are waiting to see if contractual language about cost pass-throughs gives them leverage. Duncan is skeptical. “I am dubious about the merit or ability that these end purchasers have to collect any of this—unless it was specifically negotiated in a purchase agreement,” he said. Non-importers don’t have standing to demand refunds from the government. Their only recourse is private litigation, and that depends entirely on contract terms most companies didn’t think to include.
The mergers and acquisitions world is adapting faster than most. Lucci said Northeast Ohio manufacturers are inserting tariff refund provisions into purchase agreements. Who gets the refund if a company sells between the Supreme Court ruling and the actual payout? Who handles the administrative burden of filing protests or tracking ACE compliance? “It is not every day that a U.S. Supreme Court decision has such an impact on mergers and acquisitions,” Lucci noted, “but both buyers and sellers are laser-focused on this issue.”
There’s a broader question lurking beneath the spreadsheets and legal briefs: what happens when a government collects billions under a law later deemed unconstitutional? The Supreme Court didn’t order immediate restitution. It didn’t establish a claims process. It ruled on the legality of the tariffs and left the cleanup to agencies that were never designed for mass refunds at this scale. The result is a patchwork of litigation, administrative guidance, and educated guessing.
I spoke with a logistics manager at a mid-sized electronics distributor who asked not to be named. Her company paid roughly $8 million in IEEPA tariffs over a nine-month period. She’s been tracking liquidation dates in a color-coded Excel sheet, coordinating with their customs broker, and fielding questions from the CFO about whether they should sue. “We don’t have the budget to litigate if we don’t have to,” she said. “But we also can’t afford to be the only ones who didn’t protect ourselves.”
That tension—between prudent caution and unnecessary expense—is playing out in boardrooms across the country. The government says it’s working on a solution. Judges are issuing orders to smooth the path. But trust is in short supply. Companies that complied with tariffs they believed were lawful are now navigating a refund process that didn’t exist two months ago.
The Trump administration has hinted it may replace the illegal IEEPA tariffs with levies imposed under different legal authority. That would reopen the entire trade policy debate, potentially mooting some of the refund fight. But it doesn’t erase the billions already paid. Baran’s advice to clients includes mitigation strategies for future tariff exposure, a tacit acknowledgment that this won’t be the last time businesses find themselves caught between policy ambition and legal boundaries.
What strikes me most about this situation is how it exposes the real cost of policy experimentation. Tariffs aren’t abstract. They’re cash out the door, supply chain decisions made under pressure, contracts signed with assumptions that turn out to be wrong. When the Supreme Court says a tariff was illegal, it doesn’t rewind the clock. It doesn’t undo the price increases, the lost contracts, or the companies that folded before the ruling came down.
For now, importers have three options: wait for the CAPE system to go live and hope it works as promised, file protests to protect their claims, or sue the government to secure a place in line. Each path has costs. Each carries risk. And none of them come with guarantees. The only certainty is that $166 billion—by CBP’s own estimate—needs to find its way back to the businesses that paid it. How that happens, and how long it takes, will test whether the system can correct its own mistakes as efficiently as it enforced them.
