Workers owed 100% of tariff refunds

The Supreme Court of the United States ruling on Feb. 20 invalidated most of President Donald Trump’s exorbitant tariffs levied since April 2025 that were used to bully countries into agreeing to a multitude of Trump’s demands. In a 6-3 vote — a rare ruling against Trump — SCOTUS determined Trump’s tariffs were “unconstitutional,” because tariffs are “taxation powers that belong to Congress alone.”

In levying the tariffs, Trump claimed the 1977 International Emergency Economic Powers Act (IEEPA) gave him “the power to regulate or block international commercial transactions after declaring a national emergency in response to an unusual or extraordinary foreign threat.” The court ruled that the fact that no other president has ever claimed such power under the IEEPA is strong evidence that such power does not exist.

Essentially, SCOTUS told Trump: You’ve lost, do it over again, and do it right this time — so it won’t hurt corporate profits.

The job of justices appointed to the highest court in the U.S. — created in 1789 — has always been to protect the capitalist class and to uphold the oppression of workers, people of color and immigrants. From day one the high court maintained the enslavement and genocide of African and Indigenous peoples.

With two conservative justices appointed to the court during Trump’s first administration, few subsequent rulings have gone against his agenda. Six days before the confirmation of Ketanji Brown Jackson, this court overturned women’s abortion access under Roe v. Wade. More recently, SCOTUS overturned lower courts’ restrictions against Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE). A 2025 SCOTUS ruling allowed bans on gender-affirming medical care for minors, and the court appears likely to uphold transgender athlete bans. 

What was behind the SCOTUS ruling?

Trump’s tariffs have not really benefited the U.S. capitalist system. Even Trump’s announcement of the proposed tariffs in April 2025 caused a significant, albeit temporary, crisis for stock markets.

While most companies passed the cost of tariffs on to consumers, Trump’s promise that the tariffs would bring manufacturing jobs back to the U.S. has not been realized, and the tariffs have not addressed the ongoing crisis for U.S. capitalism — never mind the crisis facing workers! If anything, they have worsened the balance of trade between the U.S. and other countries, primarily China. 

The impact of tariffs has been especially hard on hundreds of thousands of small businesses, which had to take out loans, delay hiring and cancel expansion plans — resulting in the loss of hundreds of thousands of jobs. 

Refunds for the workers, not corporations!

What happens next — and what does it mean for the working class that has collectively footed the costs of these tariffs by paying higher prices across the board?

While the justices suggested that U.S. consumers and companies are due a refund of tariff revenues — estimated to be between $133 billion to $200 billion to date — they offered no suggestions on how this would happen. Trump has already defied the SCOTUS ruling by claiming he can levy additional 10%–15% tariffs on top of the old ones. 

The U.S. National Retail Federation, which represents companies like Walmart, and the U.S. Chamber of Commerce, is calling for a swift return of money paid to the federal government for tariffs. FedEx, Costco, Toyota, Goodyear and Alcoa are among over 1,500 companies trying to reclaim levies they paid. But Workers World says any refund should go to the workers and consumers across the board who have borne the brunt of these tariffs, particularly those that have impacted food prices. 

Since most companies pass on the cost of the tariffs to the consumers, workers must demand that any refunds resulting from illegal tariffs be returned — 100% to the working class. Any workers who were laid off because of the impact of Trump’s tariffs should be immediately rehired and paid for any lost wages. Workers and consumers should also demand a reduction in the cost of any goods increased because of Trump’s tariffs.