Data shared earlier this week by U.S. Customs and Border Protection suggests the smallest and most vulnerable importers are being left behind in the early stages of the tariff refund process.
After the Supreme Court overturned most of President Donald Trump’s tariffs, which the president issued under the International Economic Emergency Powers Act, or IEEPA, Judge Richard Eaton of the Court of International Trade mandated that the federal government repay American importers for tariffs collected under the statute. CBP wrote in an early March court filing that there were about 330,000 importers eligible for a slice of the $166 billion in tariff refunds. In a March 30 court filing, Brandon Lloyd, executive director Trade Programs at CBP, wrote that 26,664 importers had signed up for the system, called Consolidated Administration and Processing of Entries or CAPE.
The data shared by CBP, along with interviews with trade attorneys and advocates, shows that the biggest importers are first in line to get paid back. The disparity reveals the ways small business is continuing to be negatively impacted by Trump’s archaic tariff regime, even beyond eating the lion’s share of the levies.
The first 26,664 importers registered for the automated CBP system account for $120 billion in refunds, Lloyd wrote. That means just about 8% of all importers paid more than 72% of all IEEPA tariffs for an average refund amount of more than $4.5 million. And that leaves more than 300,000 importers to collect the remaining $46 billion in refunds, or about $150,000 per firm.
It suggests, experts said, that smaller firms are struggling to access the CBP system and collect on what the government owes them.
“If you think about a small and medium-size business, they don’t have a trade compliance department,” Eugene Laney, president and CEO of the American Association of Exporters and Importers, told TPM. “They don’t have supply chain managers.”
Laney lauded CBP for its automated system, which his organization advocated for, but said there are still a number of procedural steps required for a business to enroll in the system, presenting challenges for the most vulnerable firms.
Even before SCOTUS struck down Trump’s tariffs, CBP had recently transitioned from issuing paper checks to an electronic automated clearing house payment system. Businesses need an account with CBP’s import and export portal to enroll in that electronic payment system, and need to be enrolled in both to access the refund portal.
CBP did not respond to TPM requests for data about firm size of the 26,664 registered refund participants.
The disparity in the size of firms that have managed to pursue restitution for Trump’s unlawful tariffs illuminates the disproportionate harm those billions of dollars in trade fees had on small U.S. businesses — the very businesses the president purported to help.
“Smaller importers may not have the resources to coordinate with their customs brokers setting them up in CAPE, but they need to do this to receive refunds,” Mark Ludwikowski, who chairs the International Trade Practice at Clark Hill legal firm, told TPM. “They are often at a disadvantage not because they lack legal rights, but because the refund process assumes a level of administrative capacity that many of them do not have in-house.”
Some smaller businesses may never attempt to collect tariff refunds through the CBP system, said Laney. Firstly, some have been forced to shutter because of unsustainable trade costs. Others may just not find the effort worth it, either because the refund wouldn’t be large enough or because it’d just be less burdensome to take a tax loss on the fee, Laney said. Wall Street is also capitalizing on the refund system, with financial services firms offering money-crunched businesses a portion of their refunds up front in exchange for the ability to collect the full refund amount later.
One year after Trump’s so-called “Liberation Day” tariff announcement levying heavy import taxes on businesses and consumers, small businesses continue to report having to increase product prices, eschew expansion plans, and ultimately lose revenue to continue operating. A report from the progressive Center for American Progress thinktank published at the end of March found the average small business spent $306,000 on Trump’s tariffs over the past year.
Trump said his tariff scheme was designed to improve U.S. manufacturing, which has been declining for decades amid the expansion in global trade. But Trump’s tariffs failed to create sustainable manufacturing jobs. The sector actually shed jobs in between January 2025 and January 2026 according to data from the Bureau of Labor Statistics.
The sheer cost of tariffs isn’t the only burden crushing smaller firms. Laney described that many firms put up additional collateral and took out loans in order to afford the increased import fees and stay afloat. Now, getting that money back is a necessity.
“The refunds would help them alleviate some of the liability,” said Laney, “but there is an urgency around that because a lot of these small and medium sized businesses borrowed so much money that if they don’t get the refunds in time, then they could potentially go out of business.”
Is the Nutlick family still profiting from buying up refund rights at a discount?
Is the sun still coming up in the East?
It’s what Republican Big Government does.
I wonder how many of them voted for the asshole.
That Donnie was a populist by any stretch of the imagination was, and continues to be, a damned lie. He just wanted votes, which he purchased by empty promises. He’s a fraudulent con-man, and will go to his grave as one.