Senate Democrats sent a letter to Treasury Secretary Scott Bessent giving the Trump administration 90 days to refund money illegally collected via tariffs after Bessent said Americans likely wouldn’t see any of the money.
Twenty-four senators signed the letter sent to Bessent on Friday morning, slamming him for backtracking on a statement made before the Supreme Court’s recent decision invalidating President Donald Trump’s tariff scheme. Before the ruling, Bessent said it “won’t be a problem” to refund money collected should the Supreme Court rule against the Trump administration, according to The Hill.
The Supreme Court indeed ruled 6-3 that Trump had illegally used the International Emergency Economic Powers Act in order to levy tariffs against countries he felt had slighted the United States. But last Friday, Bessent backtracked, saying that the Court’s ruling instead “pushed it back down to the International Tax and Trade Court. And my sense is that could be dragged out for weeks, months, years,” adding that “I got a feeling the American people won’t see [the $175 billion in illegally collected funds].”
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“On Friday, after the Supreme Court’s ruling, you said ‘the American people won’t see’ the billions of dollars in tariff revenue unlawfully collected from them. Then, on Sunday, you doubled down, dismissing questions about refunds as ‘bad framing,’ repeatedly insisting the matter is “up to the lower court” rather than the administration, and refusing to answer whether small business owners who bore the cost of these illegal tariffs would ever get their money back,” the letter read.
The letter lays out four demands for the Trump administration. First, for Customs and Border Protection to start processing automatic refunds for tariffs and duties, and establish a refund process with priority given to small businesses. The administration must also provide a timeline of no longer than 90 days to start the refund process, and “cease any efforts to delay, condition, or deny refunds pending further litigation.”
“The Supreme Court’s ruling was not, as you characterized it, “a loss for the American people.” It was a reaffirmation that no president is above the law. The true loss for the American people would be an administration that collected over $130 billion in illegal taxes and then refused — with a smile and a shrug — to give it back. If this administration does not act, Congress will,” the letter concludes.
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