US importers ‘impressed’ with Trump tariff refund rollout as reimbursements trickle in
U.S. businesses are beginning to receive refunds from the Trump administration after the Supreme Court determined the president’s tariffs lacked a proper legal basis.
Oshkosh Corporation, Basic Fun, VOS Selections, and Flexport are among the companies that said this week they are starting to see reimbursements from the federal government, in line with a previous court order that said U.S. importers could expect refunds to begin rolling out around May 11. The development was triggered by the Trump administration’s move on April 20 to set up a portal for businesses to file claims for refunds from tariffs that President Donald Trump issued through the International Emergency Economic Powers Act.
Wine importer VOS Selections, which was one of the leading small businesses that challenged the IEEPA tariffs in the Supreme Court, said Wednesday that it has received a $110,000 tariff refund.
VOS Selections CEO Victor Schwartz’s legal team told the Hill the development confirms that refunds are “absolutely starting to flow.”
“I’m kind of impressed the government built and launched this technology pretty quickly,” Flexport CEO Ryan Petersen added in comments to CBS News. “A lot of government timelines can be way longer than that.”
Petersen said that his supply chain management company’s clients have received a total of $137 million in IEEPA tariff refunds from the U.S. government. Small business owner Sarah Wells told CBS News that $10,000 in tariff refunds, about half of the total reimbursement she filed for, was deposited into her bank account on Tuesday.
Oshkosh, which produces military and other industrial vehicles, and Basic Fun, the makers of toys such as Lincoln Logs, also said they began receiving some of the tariff refunds on Tuesday.
Basic Fun CEO Jay Foreman told CNBC that the company has received 5% of the refund it filed for so far.
The government has to return the money it collected from certain tariffs imposed by Trump last year following a Supreme Court decision in February. Trump used IEEPA to issue his sweeping “Liberation Day” tariffs, among other levies, in April 2025. But the high court said in its landmark decision that the president cannot use IEEPA to issue tariffs.
The justices did not include a line in the decision allowing the White House to retain funds already collected under IEEPA, leading Customs and Border Protection to create an online system through which businesses could file reimbursement claims. CBP’s Consolidated Administration and Processing of Entries portal could process up to $175 billion in tariff refunds for at least 300,000 companies.
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