Friday, April 24, 2026
Tariffs Raised Consumers’ Prices, but the Refunds Go Only to Businesses
Tariffs Raised Consumers’ Prices, but the Refunds Go Only to Businesses
“Many families felt the sting of the president’s now-illegal tariffs, but companies have said little about whether they will share the $166 billion coming back to them.
You probably won’t receive a huge tariff refund.
The largest businesses stand to reap the biggest bucks as the Trump administration begins to return more than $166 billion in duties deemed illegal by the Supreme Court. Even though President Trump’s trade policies have led to higher prices for companies and consumers, many families aren’t in line to benefit directly from the coming refund checks.
The discrepancy is a reflection of the nation’s complicated import laws — and the ever-fluid nature of Mr. Trump’s trade war.
When the government applies taxes to foreign goods, it charges the firms and brokers that bring those items into the country. Those costs proved substantial during the president’s first year back in office, after he imposed a set of so-called reciprocal tariffs on nearly every U.S. trading partner.
But a majority of justices on the nation’s highest court struck down those duties in February, forcing the administration to pay back much of its coveted tariff revenue. As a result, the government owes refunds to the importers on its record books — meaning companies, in many cases — even if those businesses ultimately shifted the costs of Mr. Trump’s taxes on to their customers.
The beneficiaries may include retail giants, such as Costco, Gap, Home Depot, Kohl’s, Lowe’s, Target and Walmart. For some, analysts estimate that the refunds may total into the billions of dollars apiece, leaving them with a choice of whether to keep the money or share it with consumers, even if indirectly in the form of future discounts.
But almost none of those U.S. retailers commented by Thursday on their exact plans. Only Costco promised previously to pass savings on to customers, without explaining how, as the buy-in-bulk company faces one of a series of class-action lawsuits from furious Americans who believe they are owed refunds.
Heather Boushey, who served on the White House Council of Economic Advisers under President Joseph R. Biden Jr., described the refund process as a “windfall for businesses,” some of which foisted the tariffs on consumers.
“American families,” she added, “are certainly the losers.”
That could turn the tariff refunds into a divisive political issue, at a moment when a majority of voters have already expressed dissatisfaction with the president’s handling of the economy. Democrats have demanded that the administration return the money to families, but Mr. Trump has opposed returning the money at all — and he suggested this week that it would be “brilliant” if companies chose to forgo repayment.
The White House did not respond to a request for comment.
For more than a year, Mr. Trump has insisted that foreigners, not Americans, have shouldered the financial burden of his punishing global trade war. But the data has always told a more complicated story, one in which Americans have actually been left to pay a substantial toll.
One measure from the Federal Reserve Bank of New York, published in February, estimated that nearly 90 percent of the economic burden from Mr. Trump’s duties had fallen on U.S. companies and consumers. Its findings prompted an unusually harsh rebuke from the White House, which attacked the report’s economists for a conclusion at odds with the president’s beliefs.
Mr. Trump’s tariffs have also threatened to cut into families’ finances. Studying Mr. Trump’s latest rates in April, the Yale Budget Lab, a think tank, estimated that his policies could cause prices to rise as much as 1.1 percent in the short run, which would translate to an annual loss in income of about $1,500 per household. But it cautioned that its analysis rested on a set of assumptions about how Mr. Trump’s rates might evolve.
After Mr. Trump unveiled his highest duties last spring, companies in particular tried a variety of tactics to blunt the financial impact. They slowed imports, reduced staff, paused development, renegotiated deals with suppliers or absorbed the bite of tariffs into their bottom lines. And in some cases, they raised prices.
The costs of Mr. Trump’s trade war proved so staggering that some businesses sued in a bid to recover their money even before the Supreme Court ruled on whether the president had acted illegally. The official refund process commenced only on Monday, and by the government’s own count, the task ahead is monumental. By early March, there were more than 330,000 importers that had paid illegal tariffs on more than 53 million entries, customs officials said.
Some of the refunds may be significant. Walmart, for example, may stand to recover more than $10 billion in previously paid tariffs, according to an analysis this month from Citi Research. Target could be due more than $2 billion, Nike could receive $1 billion, and Home Depot could see a more than $500 million refund, the report found.
Paul Lejuez, a managing director at Citi Research who focuses on department stores, said the estimates did not include interest owed by the government on those refunds. He cautioned that the figures were imprecise calculations derived partly from companies’ financials.
Still, Mr. Lejuez said he expected retailers to face pressure soon from consumers, who want to see companies “show some signs of giving back.”
At least three, FedEx, UPS and DHL, have said they intend to share tariff refunds directly with customers. Frequently, the shipping giants pay tariffs as the official importers for shipped goods, but pass along the charges to the consumers, who placed the orders. Each said it would help customers recover money.
Other businesses have been more circumspect. At an April forum hosted by JPMorgan, John David Rainey, an executive vice president at Walmart, said he expected the big-box retailer to “certainly avail ourselves” of any refund process. But he offered few clues on Walmart’s plans for the money.
“We’ve absorbed a lot of that,” he told investors at the time, referring to the president’s tariffs. “In some cases, we had to pass along that price increase to customers.”
The lack of clarity has prompted some unsatisfied consumers to take matters into their own hands. In recent weeks, they have filed class-action lawsuits against FedEx, UPS and other brands, including Costco and Temu, the low-cost online marketplace, according to state and federal court records.
The lawsuits generally seek to recover money directly for shoppers, claiming that companies do not deserve to profit twice — first by raising prices on consumers, then from collecting federal tariff refunds plus interest.
“The consumer, for all intents and purposes, pays the tariff,” a set of lawyers argued in their lawsuit against Costco, filed in March. They asserted that the company’s pursuit of a refund “constitutes unjust enrichment at the expense” of customers.
David French, the executive vice president of government relations at the National Retail Federation, a lobbying group, said it would be difficult for companies to try to return money directly to consumers because executives cannot simply look at a tariff and “pull out a specific price increase from a retailer’s array of goods.”
But he said he expected some companies to try to give back in other ways. “It may not be a specific item on a receipt that says, ‘This is a tariff refund,’ but you’re going to see the money returned to customers in many cases,” Mr. French said.
Echoing the sentiment last month, Ron M. Vachris, the chief executive of Costco, told shareholders that his retailer would try to “find the best way to return this value to our members through lower prices and better values.” He also said that Costco did not “pass the full cost” of tariffs on to its members, and that calculating the “exact impact” of duties on prices was difficult.
Mr. Trump’s tariffs are expected to change again, as the White House looks to resurrect its previous sky-high rates using another set of trade powers. The president has already imposed a temporary, across-the-board tariff of 10 percent on most imports, using a provision of law that has been challenged in court.
The expected losses from tariffs still represent a sharp departure from the gains that Mr. Trump had once promised to Americans. Initially, the president had said he would return some of the money collected from his duties to families in the form of a rebate check. The idea never gained much traction even among Republicans in Congress, yet the president still pledged repeatedly to offer “a nice dividend to the people,” as he sought to shore up support for his economic agenda.
Mr. Trump does not appear to have mentioned the idea since losing at the Supreme Court, yet many Democrats have started to demand that his administration compensate families.
On Thursday, a group of Democratic lawmakers including Representatives Steven Horsford of Nevada and Suzan DelBene of Washington asked the top executives of Walmart, Target and other companies to ensure the coming tariff refunds “reach those who ultimately bore those costs.”
“American families felt the impact of these tariffs in everyday life,” they wrote in a letter. “The question of how refunds are distributed is one of corporate accountability and economic fairness.”
Tony Romm is a reporter covering economic policy and the Trump administration for The Times, based in Washington.“
Thursday, April 23, 2026
Iran War Live Updates: Reported Ship Seizures Add to Anxiety in Oil Markets
Iran War Live Updates: Reported Ship Seizures Add to Anxiety in Oil Markets
“Oil prices surged above $100 a barrel after Iran seized two cargo ships near the Strait of Hormuz, escalating tensions in the region. The White House stated that President Trump does not view the seizures as a cease-fire violation, despite the ongoing blockade by the U.S. Navy.
Oil was hovering above $100 a barrel and there were no public signs of a breakthrough in peace efforts. The White House said President Trump does not view Iran’s reported seizures as a cease-fire violation.
Pinned
Oil was trading above $100 a barrel again on Thursday after Iranian forces claimed to have seized two cargo ships near the Strait of Hormuz, injecting fresh fear into energy markets with no public indications of a breakthrough in efforts to restart U.S.-Iran peace talks.
President Trump told Fox News on Wednesday that there was “no time pressure” on holding a new round of talks or on the cease-fire, and “no timeline” for ending the war. Karoline Leavitt, the White House press secretary, told Fox separately that Mr. Trump did not view Iran’s reported ship seizures as a violation of the cease-fire.
The reported seizures happened after the U.S. Navy prevented dozens of ships from leaving or accessing Iranian ports as part of a blockade ordered by Mr. Trump.
Iran has in effect blocked shipping through the Strait of Hormuz — normally a vital conduit for global oil and gas supplies. Energy prices have risen sharplysince the United States and Israel began the war on Iran in late February.
A summit aimed at reopening the strait was scheduled to reconvene in London on Thursday, with military planners from over 30 countries. Shipping companies are mostly keeping vessels away from the strait because of the risk of attacks.
On Wednesday, Iranian state media reported that Iran’s Revolutionary Guards Corps had targeted two cargo vessels — the MSC Francesca and the Epaminondas, a Greek-owned ship — because they were not following Iran’s rules for passing through the strait. Iranian news outlets reported that the Guards had fired on a third cargo ship.
Here’s what else we are covering:
Israel-Lebanon cease-fire: A second round of ambassador-level talks between the two countries was scheduled for Thursday in Washington. A 10-day truce between Israel and Hezbollah, the Iran-backed Lebanese militia, is set to expire on Sunday.
Journalists in Lebanon: Israeli strikes killed one journalist and wounded another in the country’s south on Wednesday, the Lebanese authorities said.
War powers vote: For a fifth time since the war began, Senate Republicans on Wednesday blocked a resolution to enforce Congress’s war powers.“
Wednesday, April 22, 2026
Iran’s Leaders Can Afford to Be Patient
Iran’s Leaders Can Afford to Be Patient
By Jennifer Kavanagh
Ms. Kavanagh is director of military analysis at Defense Priorities.
It shouldn’t have been surprising when President Trump announced on April 12that the United States would begin a blockade of Iranian ports to force Tehran to accept a peace deal.
Mr. Trump prides himself on being unpredictable. But he is a creature of habit, and blockades have quickly emerged as one of his preferred military tactics since his return to the White House. He has already used them against Venezuela and Cuba. Now his administration has expanded the Iran embargo, and started to seize Iran-linked ships on the high seas.
Iran’s grip on the Strait of Hormuz was not the reason the United States started this war. Before the conflict, traffic passed freely through the narrow waterway. But Tehran’s effective closure of the strait since the United States and Israel attacked two months ago has emerged as the war’s most bedeviling problem and one Mr. Trump is desperate to fix. He hopes that by instituting a blockade of his own, he can choke Iran’s economy and force the country’s leaders to reopen the strait and accept Washington’s terms of surrender.
This is unlikely to work for the same reasons the United States finds itself facing strategic defeat by a weaker adversary: a mismatch of stakes and time horizons. While Iran has gained the upper hand in this conflict by extending and surviving what it considers an existential war, Mr. Trump wants a fast and decisive victory, something a blockade cannot deliver. A blockade may impose costs on Iran’s economy and population, but it will not deal the quick knockout blow the Trump administration seeks.
Blockades are designed to work slowly, with pressure accumulating over time. At the beginning of the American Civil War, for example, President Abraham Lincoln ordered a blockade of ports across the Confederacy, targeting some 3,500 miles of coastline. It had the desired effect, eventually cutting Southern cotton exports by as much as 90 percent and severely damaging the Southern economy. But it did not result in a rapid end to the war: Fighting between North and South continued for four years.
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A similar story played out during the British naval blockade of Germany in World War I. Instituted almost immediately after the war began in 1914, it aimed to limit Germany’s access to essentials like food and medicine and matériel that might support the war effort. The blockade imposed severe hardship on the German people, contributing to hundreds of thousands of civilian deaths, and hampered military operations. But Germany did not immediately surrender. The war endured until the end of 1918.
That blockades often fail to quickly change an adversary’s behavior is something Mr. Trump and his advisers should know. Earlier this year, the United States started interdicting oil shipments to Cuba in an effort to force Havana to make political and economic concessions. The island is now on the brink of humanitarian collapse, but the Cuban regime has yet to yield. The U.S. blockade of Venezuela’s oil exports was similarly ineffective: Mr. Trump announced it in December 2025, part of a monthslong pressure campaign to force President Nicolás Maduro to step down. When a few weeks of blockadefailed to elicit any compromise, Mr. Trump had to escalate further, seizing Mr. Maduro and his wife in a dangerous military raid.
Iran may prove even more resilient. The blockade has reduced the country’s oil revenues to a fraction of their prewar levels, but it is likely to be some time before the consequences become untenable for Iran’s regime. In the near term, Tehran will continue to receive oil revenue from shipments that left its ports weeks ago, and at least 34 tankers with links to Iran appear to have slipped through the blockade. These and any future successful exports can be sold at higher prices, which may continue to rise as the war drags on.
To prevent this, the administration has said the U.S. military will pursue any ship helping Iran, anywhere in the world, a move that is of ambiguous legality under international law. To meet the legal standard, any blockade must be deemed “effective,” meaning it is carried out with enough military power to be consistently and impartially enforced; have clearly defined geographic limits; and include provisions for humanitarian relief. The expanded U.S. blockade meets none of these requirements. It has no geographic boundaries or humanitarian provisions, and the U.S. Navy’s limited capacity to interdict container ships and tankers means it will have to choose which cargoes to intercept or focus on specific regions. It cannot, therefore, be “effective.” In the end, most Iranian oil shipments that are already at sea will almost certainly make it to their destinations.
At home, Iran has other ways to mitigate the effects of the blockade. Recent estimates suggest Iran has about 90 million barrels of available oil storage capacity, enough for at least two months of production, before it must make production cuts that risk permanent damage to its oil infrastructure. Tehran also has reserves of food and other essentials, and land-based trade routes that it can fall back on if needed for imports of some commodities and even some oil exports. Iran can likely endure the U.S. blockade for months without facing economic collapse. Even then, its leaders might choose to fight on rather than agree to American terms they perceive as a compromise of Iranian sovereignty.
For Mr. Trump, this timeline is likely to be unacceptable. His impatience with the war is evident in his increasingly erratic Truth Social posts and near-constant assertions that the war is already over.
His sense of urgency is understandable. Not only is the war deeply unpopular in the United States, but its effects on the American and global economies are real — and likely to grow. The longer the impasse lasts, the more severe fuel and fertilizer shortages will become across East Asia and Europe, and the more Gulf state oil exporters will suffer. A prolonged blockade will also push global oil prices higher, increasing U.S. inflation and torpedoing Mr. Trump’s affordability pitch in the upcoming midterm elections.
Instead of stripping Iran of its most important source of leverage — control of the Strait of Hormuz — Mr. Trump’s blockade may play into the Islamic republic’s hands. The blockade harms Iran’s economic future, but may lead to a longer, costlier war for the United States, severe and lasting damage to U.S. and global markets and further domestic political damage for Mr. Trump.
In a test of wills, Tehran has the advantage and a higher pain tolerance. With their survival on the line, Iran’s leaders can afford to be patient.“
Donald Trump’s Triumphal Arch and the Architecture of Autocracy
Donald Trump’s Triumphal Arch and the Architecture of Autocracy
“When asked by a reporter whom the arch would be for, Trump said, “Me.”
The latest in the Trumpite series of proposed oversized buildings—the previous one being a ballroom where the East Wing of the White House once stood, a project that a federal judge temporarily halted last Thursday, until an appeals court put his preliminary injunction on hold on Friday—is a so-called triumphal arch, though exactly what triumph so needs an arch is unclear. Standing at two hundred and fifty feet high, presumably for the two hundred and fiftieth anniversary of the Declaration of Independence, it would be more than twice as tall as the Lincoln Memorial, views of which it would block from its proposed site, near Arlington National Cemetery—where it would also overwhelm the simple graves of the fallen soldiers.
The plans for the arch were preliminarily approved last week by the Commission of Fine Arts, which is now completely inhabited by Donald Trump’s appointees, the previous members having stepped down or been fired for the crime of competence last year. The arch, designed by Nicolas Charbonneau, who leads Harrison Design’s Sacred Architecture Studio, in Washington, D.C., will feature a Las Vegas-style overload of gilded iconography, including a winged Lady Liberty, eagles, and, unusually for an American monument, lions. (Why not Siegfried and Roy’s tigers?)“
To Iran, Trump Blinked First by Extending the Cease-Fire
To Iran, Trump Blinked First by Extending the Cease-Fire
“President Trump announced an indefinite cease-fire with Iran, allowing time for Iran to respond to American demands. Iran believes it can withstand the economic impact of the U.S. blockade longer than Trump can tolerate the closure of the Strait of Hormuz. While Iran’s leadership may endure the standoff, the prolonged conflict is causing significant economic hardship for its people.
Iran’s leaders believe that they can withstand an enduring standoff longer than President Trump. The strategy could be economically devastating for average Iranians.
In the days before proposed talks aimed at ending the war between them, President Trump and Iran’s leaders exchanged a barrage of threats and insults that played out like a high-stakes game of chicken.
In the end — at least, from Iran’s perspective — Mr. Trump blinked first.
Late on Tuesday, with neither Iranian nor American mediators having traveled to Pakistan for a second round of peace talks, Mr. Trump announced an indefinite cease-fire with Iran. He said it was to give Iran’s leadership time to submit a response to American demands and would last until “discussions are concluded, one way or the other.”
For Iranian leaders, that result will most likely validate their conviction that their readiness to endure the pain of the war is higher than Mr. Trump’s.
Despite the vast destruction caused by U.S.-Israeli strikes on their country, they believe that they can withstand the increasingly costly U.S. blockade of Iranian ports longer than Mr. Trump is willing to countenance Iran’s effective closure of the vital Strait of Hormuz.
“The Iranians measure the timeline in months for themselves, and in weeks for the Trump administration and the global economy,” said Ali Vaez, the Iran project director for the International Crisis Group. “They think Trump can’t tolerate the strait remaining closed for another three weeks.”
Since the war began, Iran has been blocking most of the shipping traffic that previously moved about one-fifth of the world’s oil and a substantial amount of natural gas supplies through the strait. The impact was felt around the world, not just in rising oil prices, but in fertilizer and gas shortages. Rising gas prices in the United States also create a domestic problem for Mr. Trump in a crucial midterm election year.
After a first round of talks between Iranian and American negotiators in Islamabad, Pakistan, ended without results, Mr. Trump imposed a retaliatory U.S. naval blockade to try to prevent vessels heading to or from Iran, blocking Tehran’s ability to continue the oil exports that underpin its economy.
The reasons for the collapse of the talks remain unclear. Mr. Trump has blamed it on a “seriously fractured” Iranian leadership, unable to agree on its position before negotiations. Iranian officials argue that it is because Mr. Trump had refused to lift the U.S. blockade before talks, with American forces also seizing an Iranian-flagged ship over the weekend.
“Blockading Iranian ports is an act of war and thus a violation of the ceasefire,” Iran’s foreign minister, Abbas Araghchi, wrote on social media late on Tuesday, as it became apparent that no one was heading to Islamabad. “Striking a commercial vessel and taking its crew hostage is an even greater violation,” he continued. “Iran knows how to neutralize restrictions, how to defend its interests and how to resist bullying.”
Throughout the war, Iran has used mocking memes and videos to try to convey superiority and indifference in the face of Mr. Trump’s threats. Early on Wednesday in Iran, after Mr. Trump said the cease-fire would be extended, many Iranian semiofficial news sites posted the same mock video of an angry Mr. Trump, threatening to bomb Iran, and of his American mediators sitting in an empty negotiating room. The Iranian counterparts, who never arrive, instead deliver a piece of paper that reads: “Trump, shut up.”
Abdolrasool Divsallar, an Iran expert at the Catholic University of Milan, said the major impediment to negotiations restarting was the same as it was before talks began — both countries see themselves as having the advantage and being able to dictate terms.
“The Iran side views their ability to prevent the U.S. operation from achieving its objectives as a victory,” he said. “They assume the Trump administration may not have any other good alternatives and that time will favor them if they hold on in this status quo.”
While Iran’s leadership may be able to survive the standoff with Washington, its economy may not, analysts warn. Iran’s economy was already in deep crisis before the war, causing suffering that set off a huge nationwide protest movement in January that was crushed in a deadly crackdown.
Even if Iran’s leaders can push through the economic pain, it will come at a huge cost to its people. On social media, Iranians post daily about immense job layoffs, and about fears over medicine and plastic shortages after U.S.-Israeli strikes hit critical infrastructure.
“The Iranian regime only cares about its survival, not about its people suffering, and it does still see this as an existential battle with the United States,” said Mr. Vaez of the International Crisis Group. “And that’s why it’s not going to blink, regardless of how much the Iranian people suffer.”
Sanam Mahoozi contributed reporting“
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