A semi-truck drives past Chinese shipping containers at the Port of Los Angeles in Wilmington, California, on Nov. 5, 2025. Reuters-Yonhap

NEW YORK/LONDON — Thousands of businesses won a hard-fought victory when the U.S. Supreme Court ruled to overturn the White House's emergency tariffs. The process of getting refunds has only just begun. In a decision that could ripple throughout the global economy for years, the court ruled that U.S. President Donald Trump was not allowed to use the 1977 International Emergency Economic Powers Act to levy broad tariffs on imports.

The corporate world has spent months adjusting to Trump's often-evolving trade policy and his central use of tariffs for his agenda, not just to address trade issues but also as a cudgel against other governments' policies and actions. Now, thousands of businesses — and not just those that sued the administration — will decide whether to pursue refunds, as it means more than $175 billion in U.S. tariffs collected could be refunded, Penn-Wharton Budget Model economists said on Friday.

Stock markets rose in the United States and Europe, led by shares of affected companies, including Europe's luxury brands from LVMH to Hermes and Italian luxury outerwear group Moncler , all of which rose after the ruling.

"We don't have 100 percent of the facts, but we've been waiting for this and so many people have, so it is definitely a good day," said Michael Wieder, co-founder of premium U.S.-based baby products company Lalo, which plans to seek about $2 million in refunds. That process is expected to be slow.

Companies across consumer goods, automotive, manufacturing and apparel have been hit particularly hard as they depend on low-cost production in China, Vietnam, India and other sourcing hubs. Trump's duties raise the cost of importing finished goods and components, squeezing margins and disrupting finely tuned global supply chains.

More than 1,800 tariff-related suits have been filed with the U.S. Court of International Trade, which has jurisdiction over tariffs and customs matters, since April, compared with less than two dozen such cases in all of 2024. Prominent plaintiffs include subsidiaries of Japan's Toyota Group, U.S. big-box retailer Costco, tire maker Goodyear Tire & Rubber, aluminum company Alcoa, Japanese motorcycle maker Kawasaki Motors and Paris-listed eyewear giant EssilorLuxottica. Several lawyers said many more companies around the globe are likely to join the suits, having waited until the ruling to not draw unwanted attention from the White House. They'll join a queue of companies who could be waiting for months to years to recoup the billions of dollars in import duties.

"Companies face the challenge of gathering detailed import data to calculate the tariffs paid under various regimes, which were applied over different time periods. Even multinational firms may not have all their data neatly organized," said Nabeel Yousef, partner at law firm Freshfields. Even with the Friday ruling, it's not as if "on Monday, companies are going to start getting checks in the mail," he said. The high tariffs have heaped costs on consumers already weary from several years of post-COVID inflation. The Federal Reserve Bank of New York said last week that 90 percent of Trump's tariffs are borne by American consumers and companies, pushing back against the White House’s argument that the levies are paid by foreigners.

As of November, the effective U.S. tariff rate was 11.7 percent, compared with an average of 2.7 percent between 2022 and 2024, according to the Yale Budget Lab.

The logistics surrounding refunds is likely to be left to the U.S. Court of International Trade, which means the claims are likely to be administratively complex, said International Chamber of Commerce Secretary General John Denton, adding that the ruling was "worrying silent" on that issue.

Source: Korea Times News