With Monday’s launch of the Trump administration’s new tariff refund system, the process of returning more than $166 billion in illegally collected “emergency” import taxes has entered a new stage. Unfortunately, the system’s design is less than ideal and risks leaving thousands of American companies with much less than they’re legally owed. This blog post summarizes the refund system just unveiled by the US Customs and Border Protection—called the Consolidated Administration and Processing of Entries (CAPE)—and explains the good, the bad, and what we still don’t know.

The bottom line: Intentionally or not, the federal government will likely keep tens of billions of dollars it should have returned to importers months ago—and that it promised US courts it would return if they invalidated the tariffs at issue.

Background 

As we discussed in March, the Supreme Court decision in Learning Resources, Inc. v. Trump struck down the tariffs the administration imposed under the International Emergency Economic Powers Act (IEEPA) but left the issue of refunds unresolved. Thousands of US importers thus filed suit in the US Court of International Trade (CIT) to get their money back. In one of those proceedings, the judge assigned to all refund claims ordered US Customs and Border Protection (CBP) to issue tariff refunds “immediately.” The agency responded that the limitations of its online import processing system (i.e., ACE) prevented it from issuing quick refunds, so the judge gave CBP a short amount of time to come up with a refund plan and demanded the agency keep the Court updated on its implementation. That plan involved a new online platform, CAPE, to process refund requests, and the system was officially launched on Monday.

Here’s what we know right now.

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