The Supreme Court dropped a bombshell on Friday when it struck down President Trump's tariffs, and now one of the biggest questions hanging over Washington and Wall Street is the same one sitting in corporate boardrooms across the country: who is going to pay back all that money?
Costco, the Seattle-based retail giant, is one of thousands of companies that had already seen this coming. Long before the justices made their ruling official, Costco and a wave of other businesses had quietly hired lawyers and filed early claims with the government. The strategy was simple — get in line before everyone else does. With an estimated $175 billion already collected under Trump's tariffs, there is a lot of money at stake, and the companies that moved fast want to make sure they are near the front of the line when refunds start getting cut.
The court's ruling centered on a specific legal question. The justices found that Trump did not have the authority to impose these tariffs under the International Emergency Economic Powers Act, a law that was passed back in 1977. That distinction matters because it shapes exactly how the government now has to respond and what legal ground it is standing on going forward.
The administration was not quiet about what it thinks happens next, and the picture they painted was not pretty. Trump, who was informed of the decision during a morning meeting with several governors, did not hold back. According to someone with direct knowledge of the president's reaction who spoke on condition of anonymity to discuss the private conversation, Trump called the majority decision "a disgrace." He went further in a public statement, saying "It would be a complete mess, and almost impossible for our Country to pay," and warned that anyone claiming the refund process could happen quickly was giving "a false, inaccurate, or totally misunderstood answer to this very large and complex question."
Even one of the justices acknowledged the difficulty of what comes next. Justice Brett Kavanaugh, writing according to the Associated Press, noted that the court's ruling said nothing about whether or how the government should go about returning the billions it has already collected from importers. He called the process likely to be "a mess," a word that was apparently used at oral argument as well.
Treasury Secretary Scott Bessent offered something of a reality check back in January, before all of this came to a head. Speaking to Reuters, Bessent said the administration did have adequate funds to handle refunds, but made clear that nobody should expect checks to start arriving overnight. "We're not talking about the money all goes out in a day," Bessent said. "Probably over weeks, months, may take over a year, right?"
So for Costco and the thousands of other businesses that have been paying tariffs and waiting to see how this played out, the ruling is a win in principle. But the practical reality of actually recovering that money looks like it could drag on for a very long time. The government collecting $175 billion is one thing. Sending it back out the door is turning out to be an entirely different problem.
