The US government may need to speed up the return of illegally collected tariffs.

On March 2nd local time, a U.S. appeals court sent back multiple lawsuits that had previously invalidated President Trump's large-scale tariffs to the U.S. International Trade Court. The U.S. International Trade Court has the authority to rule on refunding the relevant taxes paid by importers. Importers had previously requested the International Trade Court to order the Trump administration to immediately begin developing a refund procedure once the cases were back under its jurisdiction. The U.S. Federal Circuit Court of Appeals approved the motion from importers to refer the cases back to the U.S. International Trade Court. The Trump administration opposed the motion, saying they hoped to postpone the cases for up to 4 months to have time to consider a response plan. On February 20th, the U.S. Supreme Court ruled that Trump's large-scale tariffs implemented under the International Emergency Economic Powers Act were invalid. More than 300,000 importers paid these tariffs, but the Supreme Court did not provide guidance on how the government should refund this money. Trump had previously stated that the refund process could potentially lead to legal disputes lasting up to five years. Currently, around 2,000 importers have filed lawsuits demanding refunds, many of which are large multinational companies such as FedEx.