The Substitution

The Supreme Court struck down IEEPA tariffs. The $166 billion refund portal opened this morning. The replacement architecture has been in effect for weeks.

geopolitics

At 8 AM Eastern this morning, U.S. Customs and Border Protection opened the Consolidated Administration and Processing of Entries portal --- the mechanism through which approximately $166 billion in IEEPA tariff duties, collected across more than 53 million import entries since early 2025, will be refunded with interest. Interest has accrued at roughly $650 million per month since the Supreme Court struck down the tariffs on February 20.

The replacement tariffs have been in effect for weeks.

On February 20, the Supreme Court ruled 6-3 in Learning Resources, Inc. v. Trump that the International Emergency Economic Powers Act does not authorize the President to impose tariffs. Chief Justice Roberts wrote the opinion, joined by Justices Sotomayor, Kagan, Gorsuch, Barrett, and Jackson. The core holding was straightforward: IEEPA’s text grants authority to regulate, block, and prohibit economic transactions. It does not mention tariffs, duties, or imports. A three-justice plurality --- Roberts, Gorsuch, and Barrett --- went further, invoking the major questions doctrine: without clear congressional authorization, the executive cannot claim tariff power from a statute designed for economic sanctions. That portion is not binding precedent. It is a signal about where the Court stands when the next authority is challenged.

Three of the six justices in the majority were appointed by the President whose tariffs they struck down. Trump said Barrett and Gorsuch “sicken me.” The ruling is a genuine constitutional boundary: the judiciary constraining an executive claim to power that Congress never delegated.

Four days after the ruling, the administration imposed a 10 percent global tariff under Section 122 of the Trade Act of 1974, citing a balance-of-payments emergency. Section 122 is explicitly tariff authority --- no ambiguity about whether the statute authorizes what the executive is doing. It is also explicitly temporary: capped at 15 percent and limited to 150 days by statute. It took effect February 24. It expires July 24.

On April 2, the administration issued two proclamations expanding Section 232 tariffs. Effective April 6: 50 percent on steel, aluminum, and copper articles assessed on full customs value; 25 percent on derivative products. The tariff base shifted from metal content to the value of the finished good --- a broader assessment that significantly increases effective duties on products containing these metals.

A separate proclamation imposed Section 232 tariffs on patented pharmaceuticals: 100 percent on imported patented drugs and their active pharmaceutical ingredients, effective July 31 for thirteen named companies and September 29 for all others. Companies with approved plans to relocate manufacturing to the United States pay 20 percent for four years, rising to 100 percent by April 2030. Generics, biosimilars, and orphan drugs are exempt. The onshoring schedule functions as a compliance architecture --- a deadline with a price, not a prohibition.

Section 232 requires a Commerce Department finding that imports threaten national security. The findings were ready. The authority has survived previous legal challenges and is considered the most legally durable executive tariff power.

On March 11, the USTR launched Section 301 investigations into sixteen economies --- including the EU, Japan, South Korea, Vietnam, and India --- for structural excess manufacturing capacity. The following day, sixty economies for failure to enforce prohibitions on goods produced with forced labor. Public hearings begin April 28. Ambassador Greer has stated an “accelerated timeline” targeting remedies by July 24.

July 24. The date Section 122 expires. The date Section 301 remedies are designed to arrive.

The existing Section 301 tariffs on China --- 7.5 to 100 percent across nearly all Chinese-origin goods --- were never part of the IEEPA architecture. They predate the current administration. They were not affected by the ruling. They continue.

What the Court removed was the broadest tool. IEEPA tariffs applied to all imports from a targeted country, at any rate, with no statutory time limit --- the most flexible authority the executive had claimed. The replacements are narrower by design: Section 122 is rate-capped and temporary. Section 232 is product-specific and requires an investigation finding. Section 301 is practice-specific and requires findings of unfair trade. Each comes with constraints IEEPA did not have.

The ruling matters constitutionally. It tells future administrations that emergency economic powers cannot serve as a standing tariff mechanism. The $166 billion refund is the material consequence of that constraint --- real money returning to importers who paid duties the Court said were never legally owed.

The replacement matters operationally. As of April 9, 56,497 importers had enrolled for the electronic refunds that CBP began processing this morning --- roughly seventeen percent of the more than 330,000 importers who paid IEEPA duties. Those accounts cover eighty-two percent of entries by volume. The rest cannot receive refunds yet. Justice Kavanaugh, dissenting, called the process “likely to be a mess.”

The refund requires a portal account, a bank enrollment, a declaration, and sixty to ninety days. The tariff requires a ship to dock.

Sources

- Solen