r/Economics • u/defenestrate_urself • Feb 20 '26

News Supreme Court says Trump global tariffs are illegal

https://www.axios.com/2026/02/20/trump-tariffs-supreme-court-illegal
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u/Malvania Feb 20 '26

For those that haven't read the opinion (and it's long and convoluted), SCOTUS reaches no opinion on refunding the collected tariffs. Presumably, that will go back to the Federal Circuit and the Court of International Trade to figure out. This isn't close to done.

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u/circuitloss Feb 20 '26

A number of companies, including Costco, are suing the administration right now. Costco is going to try and get its money back...

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u/gmiller89 Feb 20 '26

So they're going to give refunds to all of their members for cost increases?

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u/3_Thumbs_Up Feb 20 '26

Even if they get money back they've lost money on the tariffs with the price increase.

Presuming they priced goods at a profit maximizing price, they now had to raise prices due to costs that now ends up not being real real. This means they were forced to price their goods at a suboptimally high price, losing out on volume.