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Judge orders government to begin refunding more than $130B in tariffs

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Re: Judge orders government to begin refunding more than $130B in tariffs

#621

Post by loeg »

superxpro12 wrote: post #306
intrasight wrote: post #205

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The "Importer of Record" gets the refund. I read that a large fraction of those importer of record are Chinese companies.

read from where? Because over 92% of tariff costs were born by domestic importers. Thats american companies who then offload that tax through higher purchasing costs. https://libertystreeteconomics.newyorkfed.org/2026/02/who-is...

We have Chinese businesses that are domestic importers.

(To some extent, this was to facilitate tariff fraud. As an American business buying abroad, your foreign supplier would take over responsibility for importing into the US, and then you could pretend you were unaware it was fraudulently undervaluing its imports to lower effective tariffs paid. Any possible consequences for the foreign entity getting caught doing fraud are minimal.)

Re: Judge orders government to begin refunding more than $130B in tariffs

#622

Post by adriand »

intrasight wrote: post #205
Jeremy1026 wrote: post #117

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> probably Hah, we are 100% not getting our money back. And the higher, tariff level, prices aren't going to go back down either.

The "Importer of Record" gets the refund. I read that a large fraction of those importer of record are Chinese companies.

According to Ryan Peterson, the CEO of Flexport, there was a large increase in the number of foreign companies registered as the "importer of record" in the US as a result of the tariffs. On the Odd Lots podcast, he stated this was due to fraud: companies set up subsidiary corps in the US, which then imported goods from their parent/sibling/related companies at much lower prices than market value. Because tariffs are a percentage of the value, this made them lower. Then the subsidiary could turn around and sell it in the US at market rates.

Re: Judge orders government to begin refunding more than $130B in tariffs

#623

Post by loeg »

NetMageSCW wrote: post #362
bickfordb wrote: post #165

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The latest temporary tariffs are also likely illegal.

I thought those were on very solid ground commonly used by past administrations?

Section 122 is only supposed to be applied to address balance of payments deficits, which are essentially zero with floating currency exchange rates (since the 70s). They're also limited to 15% and 150 days. (Judges will not look favorably on Trump trying to just restart the same tariff for another 150 days after the first expire.)

Re: Judge orders government to begin refunding more than $130B in tariffs

#624

Post by unethical_ban »

scoofy wrote: post #478
siliconc0w wrote: post #180

SCOTUS is entirely to blame for the chaos here, the courts quickly found the tariffs illegal but they used the shadow docket to stay the ruling causing the illegal behavior to continue for a year.

Any sensible administration implementing such an obviously suspect tariff regime could have easily put the tariffs in a kind of escrow instead of just pretending it's novel policy was trivially constitutional. Blaming SCOTUS here is not out of the question, but they should not be "entirely" to blame, unless you think it's totally fine to run the Executive branch like you're trying to get away with something. It's not…

Of course not, you're right. I think the parent comment implies the responsibility of the Trump administration, the same way criticizing a botched police response implies blaming a mass shooter for a crime.

A sensible administration would not have used emergency powers to implement worldwide tariffs because they don't like how the world economy is shaping.

Re: Judge orders government to begin refunding more than $130B in tariffs

#625

Post by zelphirkalt »

trymas wrote: post #256

Side topic, but this number puts into how crazy it was for trump[0] to go on tariff war against enemies and friends alike. All the propaganda and extortionist language about how all countries will pay up to USA. Astronomical tariffs in some cases, trade wars and dramas, alienate all allies and from all of this they got only $130B ? $7T of spending, $1.77T in deficit[1] and they planned to fix this hole with $100B?! M…

The biggest damage is the souring of relations with other countries, who now no longer see the US as a reliable business partner. They have nudged countries in the EU to rather look to China. The longer Trump is in office, the bigger the damage gets. The long term course might already be set away from the US and towards China. The loss for the US cannot even be estimated yet.

Also the US is working hard on losing their military dominance. Engaging in unnecessary wars, offending its allies left and right, who are now starting to invest more into their own military, since they have learned, that they cannot rely on the US any longer, while China plays the catch-up game and is getting closer to US military capability every year.

Reputational damage is enormous of course and the US hands China easy PR wins after wins.

This seems to be the current trend. Projecting this into the future, it seems likely, that in 10, 20, 30 years from now, the most powerful global player might be China, instead of the US. Obviously, in decades a lot can happen. Future US administrations however have got a lot of repair work cut out for them. How can they convince international partners, that this does not repeat in the future, the next time a crazy administration is elected? Can they at all? Or can they fix the political landscape in their own country in that timespan? It kinda looks like their are stuck.

Re: Judge orders government to begin refunding more than $130B in tariffs

#626

Post by loeg »

jmward01 wrote: post #277

The people harmed here were the US public and they are just going to continue to be harmed. The right answer is people go to jail. Until people start going to jail, being disbarred, etc, this will keep happening. This isn't a remedy. This is continuing the cycle.

People? Trump is the only actor here who deserves punishment for these illegal tariffs, but there is no grounds to jail a sitting president.

Re: Judge orders government to begin refunding more than $130B in tariffs

#627

Post by CamperBob2 »

sonotathrowaway wrote: post #465
jonathanlydall wrote: post #434

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Maybe I don't understand as I'm an outsider, but as per my recent comment on this topic [0], I fail to see the logic of how "other countries" pay the US when the tariffs are paid by the importer and not the other country which is exporting. I do acknowledge that import taxes can in theory help local industries, especially if the other countries are subsidizing exported goods. [0]: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id…

Next time you wonder why a Trump supporter has a bad argument, remind yourself there was a nonzero number of them who literally drank bleach and Lysol after he told them too.

I like how you're being downvoted for pointing out an objective, documented fact. [1]

Of course an important corollary is that Trump did not, in fact, tell anyone to drink bleach or Lysol. His supporters were stupid enough to do it on their own initiative, at Trump's mere suggestion that it was worth looking into.

1: https://www.poison.med.wayne.edu/updates-content/kstytapp2qf...

Re: Judge orders government to begin refunding more than $130B in tariffs

#628

Post by hammock »

PaulDavisThe1st wrote: post #344
hammock wrote: post #293

Earlier quoted context omitted.

[flagged]

Insurance company deal: if you pay us $X now, and then Y happens, we will make you whole, even though that cost may very well exceed $X. Lutnick deal: we pay you $X' now, and if Y' happens, we collect everything which will substantively exceed $X'. This is not insurance, its closer to shorting stocks. Oh, one other thing: the insurance company has essentially nothing to do with Y at all, in the sense that they have n…

Lutnick deal: if we pay you $X now, and then Y happens, you will make us the whole refund, even though that windfall may very well exceed $X.

Insurance company deal: you pay us $X' now, and if Y' happens, we pay for everything which may substantively exceed $X'.

Re: Judge orders government to begin refunding more than $130B in tariffs

#629

Post by Dylan16807 »

kubelsmieci wrote: post #424
lokar wrote: post #389

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I'm serious. The Trump/MAGA view of foreign policy is that the US sits at the top, we owe friendship to no one. We engage with other nations transactionally, zero sum, with the US always getting more.

Don't antropomorfize countries. Countries can't have friends. There are only common interests. Or opposite.

Countries act on people's emotions. Friends and enemies are a pretty good description of a lot of international politics, much better than a dispassionate analysis of interests.

Re: Judge orders government to begin refunding more than $130B in tariffs

#630

Post by Saline9515 »

everforward wrote: post #466
arunabha wrote: post #422

Earlier quoted context omitted.

It's clear that there was no reasoned thought behind the tariff push. Tariffs can work if implemented in a principled way and coupled with a complementary industrial policy to develop critical sectors of the economy. Instead, we had a completely chaotic implementation of tariffs which seemed to be completely at the whim of Trump with zero supportive industrial policy. So much so that the term 'Taco' https://en.wikipe…

The studies I’ve seen seem to indicate that tariffs can work but are like running with scissors. The artificially reduced competition will spur buying domestic products, but can also make domestic producers complacent. They don’t develop new features because they have an almost captive audience, until foreign producers advance enough that people will pay the tariff premium for better foreign products. Then it’s a cat…

There are better ways than tariffs. For instance, you can increase VAT and use the proceeds to decrease taxes on work, or cut taxes for specific sectors. This way your economy is more competitive internationally, while avoiding the distorsions of tariffs.

Tariffs can also be footguns as they increase costs on imports for upstream supplies, making downstream local producers less competitive. VAT is much better for this as it is refunded when you export.

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