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Ranking Member Markey Calls on Trump Administration to Prepare Tariff Refund Plan for Small Businesses
08/24/2025
[ Article originally appeared in www.sbc.senate.gov ]
Ranking Member Edward J. Markey (D-Mass.) sent a letter to Small Business Administration (SBA) Administrator Kelly Loeffler, Secretary of Commerce Howard Lutnick, U.S. Trade Representative Jamieson Greer, and Chair of the Council of Economic Advisers (CEA) Stephen Miran, calling on their respective agencies to establish and publicize procedures for refunding tariffs to American businesses. During arguments before the U.S. Court of Appeals, judges expressed doubts about President Trump’s claims of unlimited emergency authority to impose tariffs under the International Emergency Economic Powers Act (IEEPA). Millions of businesses, importers, and customers may be entitled to relief if the tariffs are invalidated. In the letter, Ranking Member Markey writes, “Both the D.C. District Court and the U.S. Court of International Trade rejected the Administration’s blatant attempt to ignore the Constitution, which gives Congress, not the president, the power to impose tariffs and regulate foreign commerce. During a subsequent hearing before the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Federal Circuit at the end of July, judges expressed significant doubts about the Administration’s position, which claimed unlimited power to levy tariffs in response to anything the president deems a national emergency. Petitioners made it clear that IEEPA sets the bar for emergency powers quite high: it must rise to the level of “an unusual or extraordinary threat.” Ranking Member Markey continues, “The president’s own lawyers admitted in their brief before the U.S. Court of Appeals that if the Administration were to lose, businesses that have paid tariffs imposed unlawfully under IEEPA would be entitled to refunds. This would pose an incredible logistical challenge, as many tariffs are paid by third parties before being passed along to importers and their customers. Businesses would also likely be entitled to interest on their payments, which would make these misguided tariffs even more costly for the American taxpayer. Ranking Member Markey concludes, “If the administration fails to prepare for a situation in which hundreds of billions of dollars in tariff revenue unlawfully collected from American businesses must be repaid, it would go down as a historic act of executive malpractice, making what would already be a major, economy-wide disruption exponentially worse. Your agencies must act now so that businesses, especially our small businesses, are not left hanging should the courts overturn President Trump’s destructive tariff regime.”
Earlier this month, Ranking Member Markey returned to the Senate floor to pass the Small Business Liberation Act, legislation that would exempt small businesses from the broad, reckless global tariffs imposed by the Trump administration. Ranking Member Markey first attempted to pass the Small Business Liberation Act in May. Republicans blocked his legislation on the Senate floor on both occasions. Back To News |
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