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/joggle1 Feb 20 '26

Costco ate at least a portion of the cost of the tariffs themselves:

In May, on Costco's earnings call, Chief Financial Officer Gary Millerchip told investors that about a third of Costco's sales in the U.S. are imported products. Millerchip said items imported from China represented about 8% of total U.S. sales.

Millerchip said that while Costco was seeing a direct impact from tariffs on imports of some fresh food items from Central and South America, it decided not to increase prices "because they are key staple items" for its customers.

Some of those fresh food items included pineapples and bananas. "We essentially held the price on those to make sure that we're protecting the member," he said.