American businesses and shoppers paid the vast majority of the billions of dollars collected for the emergency tariffs that the Supreme Court recently ruled illegal. Companies are now pushing to get their money back. But can shoppers expect their own refund?

Probably not, according to Robert Shapiro, an international trade lawyer and partner at the law firm Thompson Coburn.

“And if you do, it’ll be pennies on the dollar,” Shapiro said.

The roughly $180 billion collected under the struck-down tariffs, according to an estimate by Goldman Sachs, was typically paid for directly by businesses, and indirectly by consumers through higher prices. Because those companies often paid the actual customs bill, any refund from the federal government would go to them.

  • Everybody with two brain cells to rub together knew this would be the result. The average American must be too stupid to tie their shoes and breathe at the same time.

    • @village604@adultswim.fan
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      419 hours ago

      You say that like we have direct control over the federal government.

      We knew it was going to end up like this, but there’s nothing we can do peacefully to stop it.

      • There was something you could have done, but most of you decided to either vote for the pedophile grifter or abstain from voting. Trump isn’t some evil genius that plotted brilliantly to trick the people. He said exactly what he planned to do, and you still elected him. Twice.