On February 20, 2026, the Supreme Court ruled 6–3 that most of President Donald Trump’s sweeping tariff regime was unconstitutional, finding that the President lacked legal authority to impose broad global tariffs under the International Emergency Economic Powers Act (IEEPA). U.S. Customs and Border Protection (CBP) guided how the agency would cease collecting duties imposed under the IEEPA, as instructed by the Ending Certain Tariff Actions Executive Order (EO). Specifically, the CBP stopped collecting IEEPA duties on goods entered for consumption or withdrawn from a warehouse for consumption, on or after 12:00 a.m. Eastern time on February 24, 2026. After the Supreme Court decision, litigation moved to the U.S. Court of International Trade, which ordered the government to begin implementing a refund process for tariffs collected under IEEPA. In consideration of the practical difficulties of complying with millions of import entries, CIT on March 6 issued an order suspending its first order directing CBP to begin paying IEEPA duty refunds, to the extent that such compliance would require immediate compliance. The suspension order also notes that CBP is creating an automated refund system that could become operational in 45 days.
In response to the Supreme Court decision, President Donald Trump quickly implemented a 10% global tariff under Section 122 of the Trade Act of 1974, effective February 24, 2026. Section 122 allows tariffs of up to 15% for 150 days to address a balance-of-payments deficit. Officials have indicated the tariff may increase to 15%, and food was not broadly exempted. The Section 122 tariffs are scheduled to expire around July 24, 2026, unless Congress extends the authority or the administration implements alternative tariff measures. U.S. Trade Representative Jamieson Greer said the administration is opening investigations into the practices of China, the European Union, Singapore, Switzerland, Norway, Indonesia, Malaysia, Cambodia, Thailand, South Korea, Taiwan, Bangladesh, Mexico, Japan, and India. Investigations are being launched under Section 301 of the Trade Act of 1974, which allows the president to impose tariffs on countries with “discriminatory” trade practices. Greer said the administration wants to wrap up its investigation by the time the 10-percent tariffs expire.
CBP explained that a new system was required because using the existing ACE system tools would require more than 4 million hours of CBP personnel resources. Notably, in the CBP March 6 declaration, CBP commits to issuing refunds for all 53,173,939 entries that included IEEPA duties. This includes 33,730,325 informal entries, or 63% of all the IEEPA-related import entries. This express commitment by CBP to issue refunds for all 53,173,939 entries means that importers should not be precluded from receiving refunds for entries that CBP has already finally liquidated. Additionally, this means that importers will not need to submit protests pursuant to CBP regulations to prevent CBP from finally liquidating entries for which IEEPA duties were paid in the last year.
CBP filed another declaration with the US Court of International Trade in compliance with the last court status request, which demanded that the CBP report on the status of its IEEPA tariff refund process. To this, CBP confirmed that it was halfway through finalizing the Consolidated Administration and Processing of Entries (CAPE) process refund requests. CBP expects it will still require importers to submit claims via ACE in a CSV file that outlines the impacted entries. The court expressed satisfaction with the matter and is expected to follow up on it weekly.
