US tariff refund process to begin April 20 after top court’s decision

United States administration plans to launch a tariff refund system on 20 of this month to return about 166 billion Dollar to U.S. importers. These tariffs were previously struck down by the U.S. Supreme Court in February. In a court filing on Tuesday, the U.S. Customs and Border Protection said it has developed a system called CAPE, which will combine refunds into a single electronic payment, sometimes with interest, instead of handling them one by one. ​The agency disclosed the CAPE launch date in a separate announcement earlier on Friday.  Agency official Brandon Lord made the declaration in the filing with the New York-based ‌Court of International Trade.
So far, over 56,000 importers have registered for refunds totalling around 127 billion US Dollar. The system will be introduced in phases, starting with simpler cases and recent imports. Some refunds, about 2.9 billion US Dollar may still need manual processing, which could slow things down. The Supreme Court ruled in February this year that Trump went beyond his authority by imposing global tariffs under a law meant for emergencies. 
After the ​Supreme Court’s decision, ⁠importers sued for refunds in the Court of International Trade, which is monitoring the development of the refund system. According to court ⁠documents, more than 330,000 importers paid these tariffs on about 53 million shipments. Meanwhile, Trump criticised the court’s decision and introduced new temporary tariffs under a different law, which are also being challenged in court.