More than 900 companies sue US over Donald Trump’s tariff regime
Good morning and welcome to White House Watch. In today’s edition, we’ll be looking at:
White House faces tariff troubles
Highlights from State of the Union
Is the Trump trade over?
Please use the sharing tools found via the share button at the top or side of articles. Copying articles to share with others is a breach ofFT.comT&Cs and Copyright Policy. Email licensing@ft.com to buy additional rights. Subscribers may share up to 10 or 20 articles per month using the gift article service. More information can be found on the Help FAQ on gift articles. https://www.ft.com/content/15a497d8-bde5-4d8f-ba35-c1f7822128f9 Donald Trump and his top officials have tried to argue that last week’s Supreme Court ruling striking down the core of his trade agenda is not a big deal.But the White House is facing a messy reality. For one, it is bracing for the impact of more than 900 lawsuits that have been filed challenging the emergency tariffs, which may now force the administration to issue refunds worth billions of dollars to aggrieved importers.“We are going to fight tooth and nail to make sure this money is given back quickly with no games and reservations about it,” Neal Katyal, the lawyer who argued against Trump’s tariffs on behalf of US-based businesses before the Supreme Court, told Stefania Palma in an interview. He set up a task force on Tuesday to secure refunds from the levies he helped invalidate.The administration had initially responded by casting doubt on whether Americans would get their money back. But it has recently shifted to signalling that it will not oppose refunds if they are approved by the lower courts.“In some ways, it is standard practice,” Jamieson Greer, the US trade representative, told Lauren Fedor on Capitol Hill after Trump’s State of the Union address.“Companies will go, and if they think they have a claim for a refund, they go make it to the court, and the courts decide the time, place and manner of this kind of thing,” he said.
