Bessent calls $166B tariff refund a 'corporate bonanza'

Bessent, speaking to reporters outside the White House, said the refunds amounted to "corporate welfare" and dismissed calls to send the money to consumers.

"The American people had the money in the U.S. Treasury, and we were forced to give it back," he said Thursday.

Bessent made a similar point the day of the February ruling, telling an audience in Dallas, "I got a feeling the American people won't see it."

U.S. Customs and Border Protection had accepted about $128.68 billion of that total for processing as of July 31, a CBP spokesperson told The Center Square.

About $100 billion had been certified and sent to the Treasury for disbursement as of that date, Brandon Lord, CBP's executive director of trade programs, said in an Aug. 4 court filing, up from about $20.6 billion in late May. The government has not said how much Treasury has actually paid out.

The refunds reach consumers only if the companies that paid pass them along. For parcel shipments, that is often the carrier. FedEx and UPS both said they have begun issuing refunds with interest, though UPS first applies each one to any past-due balance on a customer's account. Neither would say how much it has paid out, or whether it will keep the fees it charged to collect the duties.

Earlier this year, a consumer sued warehouse retailer Costco in a proposed class action arguing that any refund should reach shoppers, not the company. Costco has asked a judge to dismiss the case, which remains pending.

The judge overseeing the refunds has said the money is not reaching everyone. In a May order, U.S. Court of International Trade Judge Richard Eaton wrote that "most of the refunds that have been processed so far have gone to large importers, not small," and that the government had "not proposed a method" to refund some importers whose entries had already been finalized. As of late May, more than 3 million entries had been rejected from the refund system, most because they fell outside the government's 90-day window to reprocess them.

The refunds stem from tariffs the U.S. Supreme Court struck down Feb. 20, ruling that the International Emergency Economic Powers Act did not authorize the president to impose the tariffs.

The administration replaced the IEEPA tariffs first with a temporary 10% tariff under Section 122 of the Trade Act, then, after that expired, with Section 301 duties now being challenged by small businesses and states in the same court. Bessent said the government would recover the lost revenue through the new tariffs.

Outside analysts say the new tariffs will not bring in as much. The nonpartisan Committee for a Responsible Federal Budget estimates the replacement duties will cover less than 60% of the revenue lost to the court ruling. CBO reached a similar conclusion, projecting Thursday that changes in trade policy will widen deficits by $900 billion over 2027 through 2036, driven largely by the removal of the IEEPA tariffs and the smaller revenue from the ones replacing them.

The administration has not published an estimate of what its tariffs cost U.S. households or what share of imports they cover. Nor has it said how much of the $166 billion will ultimately reach consumers who bore much of the tariffs' economic cost.