After the Supreme Court struck down Donald Trump’s emergency tariffs last week, questions have mounted around what the ruling means for consumers and businesses that have already paid the price of the President’s signature trade policy.
Democrats have begun calling for the federal government to issue refunds to households for the roughly $130 billion in import duties that the Trump Administration has collected.
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“Donald Trump stole your money with his illegal tariffs — and you paid higher prices on everything from housing to groceries,” Sen. Elizabeth Warren (D, Mass.) posted on X on Saturday. “It’s time for Trump to pay up and give back your money.”
Meanwhile, Trump has not given up on his tariffs, which his Administration has argued has generated important revenue for the U.S. government and given the U.S. leverage to secure more favorable trade terms and investment pledges from other countries.
Here’s what to know about where Trump’s tariffs stand now and whether anyone will get a refund.
What is happening with Trump’s tariffs?/Can Trump still impose tariffs?
The Supreme Court ruled 6-3 that Trump could not use the 1977 International Emergency Economic Powers Act (IEEPA) to impose import duties by declaring a national emergency. The ruling effectively rolled back Trump’s sweeping “reciprocal” tariffs that he imposed last April, as well as additional levies on China, Mexico, and Canada tied to the flow of fentanyl into the U.S.
The ruling does not, however, reverse all tariffs. Tariffs imposed under Section 232 of the 1962 Trade Expansion Act remain in place. Those tariffs are based on Commerce Department investigations into whether certain imports threaten U.S. national security. These include tariffs on steel, aluminum, and automobiles, among others. There are also pending probes into semiconductors, pharmaceuticals, drones, and other sectors which could result in more tariffs.
The case before the Supreme Court also did not challenge tariffs imposed during Trump’s first term under Section 301 of the Trade Act of 1974, based on investigations into unfair trade practices. The first Trump Administration had imposed tariffs on certain Chinese imports that remain active.
The Trump Administration is planning to launch new “accelerated” investigations under Section 232 and Section 301, U.S. Trade Representative Jamieson Greer said in a statement on Friday. The investigations are expected to cover batteries, cast iron and iron fittings, electrical grid equipment, telecom equipment, plastics and plastic piping, and industrial chemicals, the Wall Street Journal reported.
“We expect these investigations to cover most major trading partners and to address areas of concern such as industrial excess capacity, forced labor, pharmaceutical pricing practices, discrimination against US technology companies and digital goods and services, digital services taxes, ocean pollution and practices related to the trade in seafood, rice, and other products,” Greer said.
Trump is also using other mechanisms to continue to impose global tariffs. He invoked Section 122 of the 1974 Trade Act to impose a 10% tariff on all countries “over and above our normal tariffs already being charged,” which he said he would raise to 15%. Under the act, rates are capped at 15% and can only be imposed for up to 150 days. These tariffs could still face legal challenges, and Senate Democrats have said they will block any attempt to extend them beyond the 150-day window.
“During the next short number of months, the Trump Administration will determine and issue the new and legally permissible tariffs,” Trump posted on Saturday.
Will you get a tariff refund?
After the Supreme Court ruled that a bulk of Trump’s tariffs were illegal, Democratic lawmakers, businesses, and consumers have called for refunds.
Senate Democrats announced legislation on Monday that would require full refunds with interest, amounting to around $175 billion, of the money collected from the emergency tariffs. If the legislation is enacted into law, those refunds would be issued to businesses that paid import duties. Those businesses could pass some of the benefit onto consumers by lowering prices.
Some Democrats have also called for direct refunds to American households to reimburse consumers for the higher costs that were previously passed on to them, and those Democrats are seeking to make the issue part of their platforms as the 2026 midterm elections approach.
“I’m calling for a $1,336 refund for every Ohio household,” Sherrod Brown, a former Democratic Senator for Ohio who intends to run in the state’s Senate special election, posted on Monday.
California Gov. Gavin Newsom, who has teed up a potential presidential run in 2028, posted, “Donald Trump has been illegally taxing your groceries, furniture, and cars for over a year. Time for a refund.”
Illinois Gov. J.B. Pritzker, also a potential Democratic presidential primary candidate in 2028, shared on social media a letter he sent Trump invoicing him for $8.7 billion, or $1,700 for every family in Illinois.
But the path forward is likely to not be straightforward.
Trump signaled that his Administration has no intention of issuing refunds anytime soon, telling reporters that the issue “could be in court for up to five years” when asked about refunds of tariff revenue. Justice Brett Kavanaugh, who was one of three Supreme Court justices to side with Trump and who was nominated to the court by Trump in 2018, also noted in his dissent that “refunds of billions of dollars would have significant consequences.”
“The Court says nothing today about whether, and if so how, the Government should go about returning the billions of dollars that it has collected from importers,” Kavanaugh wrote. “But that process is likely to be a ‘mess.’”
Nevertheless, Trump himself previously floated the possibility of giving out tariff “dividend” checks to low- and moderate-income families, especially as he seeks to make affordability the center of Republicans’ midterm campaign, although the idea would require congressional approval and has been met with skepticism from some Republicans in the Senate and House.
How will prices be affected?
Consumers may see some prices go down. The Yale Budget Lab estimated that the Supreme Court ruling reduced the average effective tariff rate from 17% to 9%, although that estimate does not include new levies that have replaced the invalidated IEEPA tariffs. U.S. Customs and Border Protection stopped collecting the emergency tariffs after 12 a.m. E.T. on Tuesday.
At the same time, the initial 10% tariff announced by Trump under Section 122 took effect, which Trump raised to 15% “effective immediately.” It is not yet clear whether the 15% rate took effect on Tuesday.
What does this mean for trade deals?
The ruling has threatened to upend trade agreements that the U.S. struck with countries seeking to lower Trump’s emergency tariff rates.
A slew of countries that were either subject to a baseline 10% tariff or who had negotiated their tariff rates down could end up with higher tariffs. Global Trade Alert suggests that the U.K., Japan, South Korea, and some E.U. countries that struck deals with the U.S. will now pay more than they did prior to the ruling (and the new tariffs). Countries like Singapore and Australia that were paying the 10% baseline tariff before will also be subject to higher 15% tariffs.
By contrast, China, Brazil, and India, which have publicly sparred with the U.S. in the past year, benefit most as the 15% tariff replaces the much higher IEEPA tariffs, according to the nonprofit global commerce tracker.
Among the biggest concerns is whether the new Section 122 tariff will affect the terms set by trade deals.
“Pure tariff chaos from the US administration. No one can make sense of it anymore,” Bernd Lange, Chair of the European Parliament’s Committee on International Trade, posted on Sunday. “Do new tariffs based on Section 122 not constitute a breach of the deal?”
The E.U. paused the ratification of its trade deal with the U.S., which had lowered tariffs on most E.U. imports to 15% in exchange for zero levies on many American industrial and agricultural products, as the European Commission seeks clarification from Washington about whether the bilateral agreement will be honored.
“A deal is a deal,” the European Commission said in a statement. “In particular, E.U. products must continue to benefit from the most competitive treatment.”
The U.K., which was the first country to strike a trade deal with Trump during his second term, is also uncertain on whether its goods will be subject to the 10% tariff rate secured last May or higher levies. British Education Secretary Bridget Phillipson told Sky News on Sunday that “we would hope and expect” the “preferential deal” to continue, “but these discussions are ongoing.” The U.S.-U.K. deal also lowered some sectoral tariffs on British car and plane parts exports.
Several countries had also pledged massive investments to or purchases from the U.S. in order to secure trade deals, which now appear less favorable.
So far, Japan has signaled that it will move forward with its U.S. projects. Japan promised to invest $550 billion in the U.S. in exchange for lowering tariffs on autos and auto parts—the Asian country’s biggest export to the U.S.—from 27.5% to 15%. As part of the package, Japan announced last week that it would invest $36 billion in American critical minerals, oil and gas infrastructure, and power generation.
Still, Japan’s Trade Minister Ryosei Akazawa on Monday asked the U.S. government to ensure that “Japan’s position should not be worse off than its position under last year’s Japan–U.S. agreement.”
“There is a possibility that some items, which were set at a non-stacked 15% rate in accordance with the Japan-US trade deal last year, could see an additional tariff burden with the new levies,” Akazawa said in a press briefing on Tuesday.
South Korea also committed $350 billion to the U.S. in exchange for lowering the U.S. tariff from 25% to 15%, although Trump last month threatened to reimpose the 25% tariff rate over the fact that South Korea had not yet ratified the agreement. South Korea’s government said on Monday that it plans to keep to its trade deal. Sung Kim, the President of Hyundai Motor, said the country could, however, face more tariff pressure if the Trump Administration imposes more sectoral tariffs.
Several other countries across Asia that struck trade agreements with the Trump Administration could face steeper challenges since they offered the U.S. preferential terms in order to lower their tariffs to rates that may now be higher than the 15% rate other countries pay. The White House has not clarified whether the across-the-board Section 122 tariff will apply on top of existing tariffs for countries that have made trade deals.
Indonesia, for example, may be stuck paying a 19% tariff rate (or a 34% rate if stacked with the Section 122 tariff) despite making certain concessions to the U.S. That outcome could be worse than countries that never made a trade deal with the U.S. and potentially worse than the 32% “reciprocal” tariff Indonesia initially faced last April before it negotiated a reduction.
But Trump has issued a warning to countries that might consider backing out of their trade deals or pledged investments.“Any Country that wants to ‘play games’ with the ridiculous supreme court decision, especially those that have ‘Ripped Off’ the U.S.A. for years, and even decades,” Trump posted on Truth Social on Monday, “will be met with a much higher Tariff, and worse, than that which they just recently agreed to.”
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