Democrats seek billions in refunds after Trump tariffs ruled illegal
Democratic governors call for compensation after the court declared Donald Trump’s tariffs illegal, raising questions about returning billions collected from importers.
Governor JB Pritzker sent Donald Trump an invoice Friday demanding nearly $9 billion in tariff refunds for Illinois families after the US Supreme Court ruled the president's much-touted levies are illegal.
Pritzker urged the White House to "cut the check" after justices ruled 6-3 that Trump had exceeded his authority by invoking emergency powers to impose tariffs that reshaped global trade and pushed up prices at home.
"Your tariff taxes wreaked havoc on farmers, enraged our allies and sent grocery prices through the roof," the Democrat wrote, warning further legal action could follow if compensation were not forthcoming.
In the letter, shared with US media, Pritzker demanded about $1,700 per Illinois household, the amount Yale University experts said the average US household would pay in tariffs last year.
Pritzker wasn't alone in seeking payback, both political and literal, for widespread consumer woes.
Earlier Friday, California Governor Gavin Newsom said the money Trump's tariffs had raised came from US voters' pockets, and should be refunded.
"Time to pay the piper, Donald. These tariffs were nothing more than an illegal cash grab that drove up prices and hurt working families, so you could wreck longstanding alliances and extort them," he said.
"Every dollar unlawfully taken must be refunded immediately, with interest. Cough up!"
Pritzker and Newsom are widely seen as potential Democratic contenders in the 2028 presidential race.
Whose money?
Their demands add a populist flourish to a complicated legal and economic reality.
Announced with fanfare last April, Trump's tariffs have raised more than $130 billion from importers, with a significant proportion of that extra cost passed on to consumers through higher prices.
Treasury Secretary Scott Bessent has expressed scepticism that ordinary Americans will see direct compensation.
The scale of potential repayments is vast. The influential Penn-Wharton Budget Model has estimated that refunds could total $175 billion, though it's unclear who would ultimately receive the money.
Trump himself acknowledged that any refund process could take years.
That's a harsh shift for those who may have hoped for a tariff "dividend" check after the 79-year-old Republican repeatedly said last year that millions of Americans would get "a little rebate" because "we have so much money coming in."
In his dissent, Trump-appointed conservative Justice Brett Kavanaugh noted Friday's ruling "says nothing today about whether, and if so how, the government should go about returning the billions of dollars that it has collected from importers."
New York's Democratic governor, Kathy Hochul, called the Trump administration's tariffs "an unlawful backdoor tax on hardworking families, farmers and small businesses, raising prices on everything from groceries to building materials", though she did not demand refunds.