Costco sues Trump admin seeking tariff refunds before Supreme Court rules if they’re illegal

CNBC: “Costco sued the Trump administration to get a full refund of new tariffs it paid so far this year, and to block those import duties from continuing to be collected from the retail warehouse club giant as a Supreme Court case plays out. In the suit filed Friday, Costco said that it risks losing the money it has already paid to satisfy the tariffs even if the Supreme Court eventually upholds earlier lower court rulings that found President Donald Trump did not have the legal power to impose those duties. The company noted a looming Dec. 15 deadline that could prevent the tariffs that it has already paid on an estimated basis from being refunded. Costco did not say how much money it believes should be refunded to the company. Costco’s suit, filed in the U.S Court of International Trade, said that U.S. Customs and Border Protection denied the company’s request to extend the Dec. 15 date of so-called liquidation, the final computation of tariffs assessed on imported items. While an importer has six months to file a protest contesting liquidation, “not all liquidations are protestable,” the suit said. Dozens of other companies have filed similar lawsuits to protect their right to potential refunds in case the Supreme Court rules against the so-called reciprocal tariffs that Trump imposed on imports from many U.S. trading partners and his so-called fentanyl tariffs on products from Canada, China, and Mexico. Trump invoked the International Emergency Economic Powers Act to impose those often high tariffs. In August, the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Federal Circuit, in a 7-4 ruling, upheld a prior decision by the Court of International Trade that found Trump did not have that power…”

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