Three months before the midterm elections, a handful of prominent Democrats have seized on an issue that combines the themes of affordability, resentment of sky-high corporate profits and opposition to President Donald Trump’s agenda: tariff refunds.
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When the Supreme Court ruled in late February that the Trump administration had illegally collected $166 billion in import duties under the International Emergency Economic Powers Act (IEEPA), experts quickly cautioned Americans that they were unlikely to see any cash.
It’s not just the complexity of the refund process. In a March court , the administration disclosed that had paid tariffs on more than 53 million import entries.
But, by law, the roughly $100 billion in tariff refunds to date have gone to the “importers of record” – the corporations that paid the duties at the border – not the American consumers who ultimately shouldered the burden via higher prices.
(And shoulder they did. The nonpartisan Congressional Budget Office found foreign exporters picked up just 5% of tariff costs. The remaining 95% fell on domestic firms, which passed the costs , who paid more for everything from apparel to appliances.)
That means that if you paid more at the store for a pair of Nike sneakers hit by tariffs, the shoe company that is on record as having paid the import duty at the border will get a refund. You almost certainly will not.
That’s not sitting well with some prominent Democrats.
Pressuring Corporations
Corporations collecting government checks while consumers struggle with the cost of living is a pretty classic recipe for getting elected officials involved.
Last week, Democratic Sen. Elizabeth Warren of Massachusetts, who ran for her party’s presidential nomination in 2020, wrote to corporations standing to benefit from billions of dollars in tariff refunds, including Amazon, Apple, Energizer, Motorola, Nike, Target and Walmart.
“I urge you to pass along any refund you may receive to the consumers who paid higher prices for your products while the tariffs were in place,” .
She’s not alone. Illinois Gov. JB Pritzker, a Democrat widely seen as a potential presidential candidate in 2028, sent a letter last week to Trump in which he pushed for direct payments of $1,700 to Illinois families.
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“There is no portal to request a refund for a mother in Rockford buying groceries for her children,” he , alluding to the creation of a government website for corporations to request tariff refunds. “There is no trade attorney representing a retiree in Carbondale paying off their mortgage. There is no check coming in for the farmer in Champaign who had to pay more for his equipment.”
Democratic Sen. Ron Wyden of Oregon introduced the Tariff Refund Act back in April. The bill, which has 26 cosponsors, calls on the federal government to refund, “with interest,” IEEPA tariff revenue, with a priority on getting money back to small businesses.
There are other proposals from House Democrats. Rep. Haley Stevens, who just lost the party’s Senate primary in Michigan, introduced legislation that would direct up to $1,700 in refunds to families in the state with annual incomes under $400,000.
Trump himself has at times mused about paying Americans out of tariff receipts. But there has been no public follow-up.
This Isn’t Going Away
Democratic criticisms of Trump’s tariff policies did not start with the Supreme Court ruling, and they won’t end when these proposals fail to secure refunds for American consumers, as they almost certainly will.
The targets – Trump and big businesses – are simply too ripe, particularly in an election year with control of Congress up for grabs.
There are a lot of uncertainties – the Court of International Trade is watching the refund pipeline and could make changes, and the administration is exploring other avenues for imposing tariffs since Trump still sees them as the solution to a wide range of economic and political grievances.
And then there’s the electoral question. Highlighting record-breaking refund windfalls for corporations at a time when Americans report being economically stressed would seem to be a potent force at the ballot box in November. But will it?
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