The government filed a motion in the lower court to stay the judgment against the Section 122 tariffs in the Court of International Trade and allow the government to continue to collect the tariffs pending appeal. Given the mess in the IEPPA tariff case from staying the initial judgment, it will be interesting to see what happens with these tariffs. The motion is accompanied by three declarations. One is from the head of the United States Trade Representative about the importance of allowing the tariffs to continue while the administration is negotiating new trade deals. The second is from Lutnick who continues to conflate balance of trade and balance of payments, arguing the US will suffer irreparable harm if the tariffs are halted (for a matter of weeks, no matter whether they may be unlawful). The final declaration is from Brandon Lord from CBP over the difficulty in complying with the order until they are able to program additional capability into CAPE and other internal software systems. This is especially true since the order only enjoined collection of tariffs from two small importers and entities in the state of Washington. See Entry 42 on the docket:
Nothing has happened with the Appeal to the Federal Circuit other than the case has been docketed and lawyers are starting to notice their appearances.
In their most recent progress report on April 28, they stated the first refunds would happen on or about May 11 (today). Their next progress report is tomorrow. It sounded like 3% of the refunds were being processed in this first tranche (although language is a bit ambiguous to me).
There was a periodic update from CBP in the IEPPA chief case in the Court of International Trade (CIT). Information about a subset of refunds owed under Phase 1 of the refund process have been sent to the US Treasury (who will effectuate any refunds) and more are continuing to be sent. From what I can tell, this phase does not include all the affected imports, not all importers have filed claims, some of them haven’t provided bank account info to receive refunds (appears to be a small fraction). The refunds pending so far appear to be roughly 20% of the total IEPPA tariffs collected.
CBP indicated in a hearing that they are in discussions with surety organizations regarding their refunds (mentioned above as complication).
Overall, still seems a bit messy but also appears that CBP is acting in good faith and trying to develop an efficient process for refunding importers and surety organizations.
As far as the Section 122 tariffs, recall there were two cases joined in the CIT, one from two small importers granted relief titled Burlap and Barrel, and one titled Oregon v Trump from various states (only Washington was granted relief). The government appealed both cases to the Federal Circuit. They filed a motion to consolidate the two cases on appeal and to stay the judgment in the CIT pending appeal. The Federal Circuit granted the motion to consolidate and issued a temporary stay while hearing arguments about the motion for a stay pending appeal.
Thanks for posting that link, nice to see the wine importer Vos Selections get their refund (and others, too). It was their case, I think with one other small importer, that won at the Supreme Court with Neal Katyal arguing for them. Another case was found to lack lack standing because the initial filing was not in the CIT.
FYI, here’s an analysis of the impact of the latest court ruling against tariffs – in this case the 10% across-the-board levy that the White House announced in February, immediately after the Supreme Court struck down the higher tariffs put in place last year.
The bottom line: This ruling only applied to three of the plaintiffs in this case, the government has appealed, and the 10% tariffs are temporary and expire in late July, and the administration is working on a new set of tariffs under a different law.
The issue with 301 tariffs is even if flimsily reasoned, the legal authority to impose them is clear. So a court would have to assess whether the evidence is sufficient and perhaps whether the tariff imposed is sufficiently related to the claimed harm.
With the IEEPA and Section 122 tariffs, the basic question was whether they even granted the authority to impose the tariff. That’s a bit easier for a court to reach without digging into evidence, which can take some time.
