The US logistics company Fedex is pressing for a refund of tariffs already paid with a lawsuit against the government of President Donald Trump. This is about the import fees, which the Supreme Court recently ruled to be unlawful. They are demanding “full repayment” of all customs duties paid, which were based on the emergency law called IEEPA, according to the lawsuit filed with the Court of International Trade in New York. It is directed against the Customs and Border Protection Agency (CBP), which is part of the US Department of Homeland Security.
With the lawsuit, Fedex responded to the US Supreme Court’s decision last Friday. Invoking the 1977 emergency law, Trump had bypassed Congress and imposed tariffs on dozens of trading partners since the start of his second term. The Supreme Court declared these tariffs illegal. The judges ruled that the law does not allow the US President to impose tariffs independently. They did not decide whether the government must return customs revenue to importers. Other courts will now have to clarify this.
Fedex’s action appears to be the first lawsuit by a large American company since the ruling, several US media reports. The logistics group argues that it suffered damage because it paid customs duties on imported goods, the legal basis of which has now been found to be unlawful.
After the Supreme Court’s ruling, a wave of demands for refunds of customs duties that had already been paid was expected. According to calculations by the University of Pennsylvania, the US state budget is around $175 billion. That would correspond to around 2.5 percent of the federal government’s budget.
