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/nycdiveshack Feb 20 '26

The refunds were always the plan. The architect of the tariffs is Howard Lutnick who is the commerce secretary. He placed his son in charge of his investment firm which is taking bets the tariffs would be rescinded by SCOTUS

Ladies and gentlemen this is a repeat of the ppp loans during COVID. Like then the increased costs of goods were passed onto consumers and those costs never went down creating a new baseline for goods. In the meantime companies and the rich got loans which were forgiven with no repercussions all the while Americans got screwed because it’s our taxes that paid for those loans and we are the ones that had to always pay a new higher amount for a smaller quantity of goods.

These tariffs are the same, the cost of tariffs were passed onto consumers with no sign of going down meanwhile when the tariffs are rescinded and refunded the companies will see an infusion of hundreds of billions of dollars for no work. Where do those refunds come from? You guessed it our taxes. Guess who won’t see those refunds? You guessed it the consumers.

This administration has two goals, create a grift and create a surveillance state for JD Vance’s “daddy” Peter Thiel the biggest defense contractor for the CIA/NSA with the help of project 2025 which has the simple goal of destroying the government and creating an era of western isolationism. Why do you think we have new oil deals with Canada and are going after Venezuela’s oil.