Costco sues Trump to recover tariff refunds

Costco sued this Monday the Administration of President Donald Trump, in an effort to obtain a full refund of the tariffs paid by the retail giant this year and to prevent those levies from continuing to be imposed while a Supreme Court case unfolds.

In the lawsuit, the company indicated that the December 15 deadline to close the “liquidation” process is very close, and that this could prevent it from recovering the fees paid, even if the highest court rules in favor of removing the tariffs in the coming months.

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Costco also requested that a judge order the Customs and Border Protection (CBP) to stop collecting tariffs while the Supreme Court keeps the case under consideration, in order to avoid new payments that could also be non-refundable. According to the lawsuit, CBP rejected a request from the chain to extend that liquidation period, a procedure by which the final amount of tariffs applied to imported products is calculated, leaving the company exposed to significant losses. Costco’s lawsuit states that both the Court of International Trade and the Federal Circuit Court of Appeals, which analyzed the lawsuits against Trump’s tariffs before the case reached the Supreme Court, have warned that “an importer may lack the legal right to recover duty refunds for entries that have been liquidated, even when the underlying legality of a tariff is later found to be illegal.”