Supreme Court strikes down IEEPA tariffs — Flexport's Ryan Petersen on the $175B refund question

The Supreme Court struck down Trump's reciprocal tariffs under the International Emergency Economic Powers Act. The ruling left unresolved whether the $175 billion in tariffs already collected from importers over the past year will be refunded.

Ryan Petersen, CEO of Flexport, reports that trade attorneys are preparing to charge businesses 15% fees to pursue refunds on their tariff payments. Flexport is building an automated refund calculator to help companies assess their potential reimbursements at a much lower cost.

The practical challenge is scale. Hundreds of thousands of importers paid tariffs across dozens of product categories. Without Supreme Court clarity, the refund mechanism remains undefined. It could flow through customs authorities, the courts, or another path entirely. That ambiguity is driving demand for third-party tools to help businesses quantify exposure and prepare claims.

“The Supreme Court ruled that the tariffs, the IEEPA tariffs — the reciprocal tariffs — those have been overturned. However, the Supreme Court did not give any clarity about do we get refunds or not. A $175,000,000,000 question. What happens to all that money that people paid over the last year? Trade attorneys told us they're planning to charge 15% to get you a refund — we've got an automated process, so I intend to do that for much, much less.”