U.S. Appeals Order for Tariff Refunds to All Importers

Government lawyers have told a federal appeals court that a Court of International Trade judge overstepped his authority when he ordered U.S. Customs and Border Protection to refund tariffs to every company that paid duties deemed illegal in February — including importers that never filed suit in trade court.

The government appealed to the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Federal Circuit in June and filed its opening brief on Monday.

The brief leans on a Supreme Court decision from June 2025 in a case over birthright citizenship. Part of that ruling limited the use of universal injunctions, which apply a court's decision to everyone affected rather than only the parties before the court.

Judge Richard Eaton, who is overseeing the tariff lawsuits at the Court of International Trade, has said those limits do not apply here. The government disagrees.

"The CIT's universal injunctions, requiring the government to refund IEEPA duties for all importers (including non-party importers), cannot possibly be squared with CASA," government lawyers wrote, referring to the case that restricted universal injunctions.

Most of the refunds have already been paid. CBP has processed and certified $100 billion in refunds, according to the filing. What remains at issue are companies whose entries went through the customs process and were finalized. Under a congressional rule, CBP cannot reprocess tariffs once the administrative refund process is no longer available. Those companies are free to sue to recover the money, the government said.

"The Court of International Trade (CIT) has already entered hundreds of such orders in suits brought by importers seeking that relief, and importers who have not yet brought such suits are free to do so within the statute of limitations," the brief said.

Barry Appleton, a law professor and co-director of New York Law School's Center for International Law, said the government appears to have the better legal argument, but that businesses — especially small ones — could suffer.

"The government took this money under a law the Supreme Court said never authorized it. Getting it back should not turn on whether a business could afford to sue," he said. "Refunding an unlawful tariff should not be a reward for litigating. ... You cannot really ask a small company to sue for money it does not know it is owed, on a deadline it has never heard of."