I turned 65 this week. My present was Covid, four days on the sofa instead of celebrating.
Someone else picked up an unplanned windfall this week too. Unlike mine, theirs is worth having.
The US Supreme Court struck down the IEEPA tariffs back in February. The Court of International Trade then ordered refunds on the duties collected under them, an estimated $166 billion working its way back through Customs. Only it isn’t going back to the people who actually paid it.
Refunds go to the importer of record, not the shopper who paid the marked-up shelf price while the tariff was live. John Baulch flagged this well this week: the money is quietly finding its way back to the companies that imported the goods, with no obligation on any of them to pass a cent of it downstream. A bit shit, really. Also a very nice windfall, if you’re the one holding the paperwork.
I’ve spent twenty years watching landed cost move in both directions through a supply chain, and the pattern never changes. When cost goes up, it reaches every level within the week. Distributor tells agent, agent tells manufacturer, everyone adjusts fast. When cost comes down, or gets handed straight back like this, it moves like treacle, if it moves at all. Nobody rushes to volunteer money they’re not contractually obliged to give up.
This isn’t a scandal. It’s just how trade works when there’s no rule forcing generosity. But “tariffs are being refunded” and “your toys get cheaper” are two completely different sentences, and this week proved it.
Sixty-five, unwell, and no closer to a refund on either front. I’ll take the sofa over the paperwork.
