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More than 900 companies have sued the United States over Donald Trump’s tariff regime, which was thrown out by the US Supreme Court, raising pressure on the administration to issue refunds that could total more than $160bn.
The legal tussle is set to inject a fresh dose of instability around a critical pillar of Trump’s second presidency and threatens a revenue source he has pledged to use for all manner of purposes, including income tax refunds and national debt reduction.
Companies are rushing to file claims for repayment of duties slapped on countries worldwide that they were forced to absorb, setting up a legal showdown over tariff revenue collected by the US since last year.
FedEx on Monday became the first large American company to sue the government after the Supreme Court found the duties illegal.
Neal Katyal, the lawyer who argued against Trump’s tariffs on behalf of US-based businesses before the Supreme Court, set up a task force on Tuesday to secure refunds from the levies he helped invalidate.
“We are going to fight tooth and nail to make sure this money is given back quickly with no games and reservations about it,” Katyal told the FT in an interview. Katyal, a partner in the Washington office of law firm Milbank, has argued several high-profile cases before the Supreme Court and was the acting US solicitor-general under former President Barack Obama.
The tariff claims are the latest moves in a burgeoning legal cottage industry challenging Trump, producing hundreds of cases on everything from tariffs and immigration to civil rights and the environment.
In more than half the cases, courts have upheld the challenges, an FT analysis of court data shows.
The lawsuits challenging Trump’s levies have been filed with the US Court of International Trade, according to filings submitted by Katyal on Tuesday in lower courts that are now set to address the question of refunds.
In the filings, Katyal asked the trade court to permanently block the tariffs and order the government to refund all duties, with interest. The White House did not immediately respond to a request for comment.
Speaking to reporters after Trump’s State of the Union speech on Tuesday night, Jamieson Greer, the US trade representative, did not rule out the possibility that the government would have to issue billions of dollars in refunds to companies as a result of Friday’s ruling.
“In some ways, it is standard practice,” Greer told the FT after Trump’s speech. “If they think they have a claim for a refund, they go make it to the court, and the courts decide the time, place and manner.”
But the Supreme Court’s tariff ruling, by far the biggest challenge to Trump’s authority, is intensifying the wave of lawsuits that have challenged his agenda since he returned to the White House last year.
Individuals, companies, advocacy groups and even US cities and states have unleashed a deluge of legal challenges against Trump as he pushes the boundaries of presidential authority via a blizzard of executive orders and rarely invoked laws.
With few exceptions, Republican lawmakers, who control both congressional chambers, have taken little action to counter the president, leaving courts to be the last line of resistance against Trump.
Of the nearly 350 cases where federal courts have weighed in on government actions, more than two-thirds have led to full, partial or preliminary blocks of Trump’s policies. A backlog of nearly 300 cases filed before Trump’s tariffs were struck down remains pending.
The legal onslaught against the administration has multiplied lawyers’ client requests.
Some lawyers have even launched firms to specialise in challenging the government.
One of them is Abbe Lowell, the veteran litigator who has defended clients across the political spectrum and has told the FT he was on a “mission” to counter a Trump presidency that is pushing democracy “to the point that it could break”.
The clients at Lowell’s firm include Lisa Cook, the Federal Reserve governor Trump is seeking to fire based on accusations of mortgage fraud. She denies the allegations and her case against the government is pending before the Supreme Court.
Companies in recent days have filed dozens of challenges against Trump’s tariffs with the trade court, which was flooded with lawsuits even before the high court’s opinion.
The last time global trade was rocked by Trump’s policies, more than 3,000 cases were filed with the CIT in the weeks after his first-term tariffs on Chinese imports were challenged in 2020.
The number of tariff cases is once again expected to surge.
“The Supreme Court said unequivocally that this money was taken illegally,” Katyal said. “When that happens . . . you gotta give it back.”
Additional reporting by Chris Cook