US importers demand refund of Trump-era tariffs on Chinese goods worth billions of dollars
- Over 6,000 plaintiffs want reimbursement for billions they have paid in duties, saying the US government didn’t follow proper procedure in instituting them
- The Office of the US Trade Representative says the law gives the president the power to make such decisions and it was just following his orders
“China will pay.” The slogan was used by then-US president Donald Trump in 2018 to sell his higher tariffs on Chinese imports to American manufacturers, retailers and consumers.
Five years later, thousands of disgruntled American importers are demanding billions of dollars in reimbursements in a US court as President Joe Biden has stuck with most of Trump-era tariffs since taking office in January 2021.
These firms contend that the US government unlawfully disregarded public comments and did not assess the damaging effects on the American economy before imposing additional duties, ranging from 7.5 to 25 per cent, on Chinese goods worth US$300 billion.
“Did you take into account any of these comments? Did you come to some sort of modicum of independent judgment that these tariffs were appropriate in light of the devastating economic harms predicted by the largest industry organisations and consumer organisations in the United States?” a lawyer for the plaintiffs asked during a hearing this month at the US Court of International Trade in New York.
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Countering the argument from the Office of the United States Trade Representative (USTR) that it had been following the president’s orders, the lawyer said: “The president could have ordered 500 per cent duties on 100 per cent of China trade.”
Faced with rising prices for consumer goods, the Biden administration has been mulling partial lifting of the tariffs to ease inflation.