Leading up to Monday, when the Trump administration launched its online tariff refund portal, Lynlee Brown, EY partner of global trade, said she had importers texting her, somewhat incredulous the refunds were actually happening.
Back in March, following the Supreme Court’s decision to strike down tariffs under the International Emergency Economic Powers Act (IEEPA), Court of International Trade Judge Richard K. Eaton ordered the Trump administration to refund all tariffs collected illegally, not just for companies that sued over the tariffs. To the shock of legal and logistics experts alike, the administration has not appealed the ruling.
“Everybody’s wondering that,” Brown told Fortune.
“It’s genuinely surprising that the government hasn’t appealed the universal refund order already,” Matthew Seligman, a federal litigator of constitutional law and principal of Grayhawk Law, told Fortune. “The government has opposed universal injunctions in every single context since President Trump retook office. If the government appealed the universal refund order, it would win.”
The decision by the administration not to appeal drew renewed skepticism in the leadup to Monday, when Customs and Border Protection (CBP) launched the Consolidated Administration and Processing of Entries (CAPE), opening the door for U.S. importers to apply for tariff refunds totalling $166 billion. The administration has until May to petition the order.
According to Seligman, an eventual appeal on the universal refund order would jeopardize the refund application process, which CBP estimated would take 60 to 90 days after entries were processed.
“The government can reverse course again,” Seligman said. “That would be jarring, but it’s something they could do. And so then submitting CAPE would have ended up being sort of a waste of time.”
But the reasoning behind the Trump administration’s lack of appeal, though unclear, may give insight into the White House’s priorities as it navigates midterms, the ongoing war in Iran, and investigations into its other tariffs, experts said.
CBP and the White House did not respond to Fortune’s requests for comment.
The Trump administration has left experts scratching their heads
To Seligman, among the most surprising reasons for a lack of appeal was that tariffs under IEEPA were a fundamental part of President Donald Trump’s “signature economic policy.” Trump announced tariffs on the first day of his second term, expanding those import taxes on “Liberation Day” in April 2025.
Trump also has a track record of winning appeals against court orders universal in scope, with a universal refund order fitting into a similar category of past successful appeals, Seligman noted. In June 2025, the Trump administration successfully argued against nationwide injunctions that blocked his executive order to limit birthright citizenship: The Supreme Court narrowed injunctions, with future court orders on birthright citizenship applying to only a specific plaintiff.
By accepting the judge’s order on tariff refunds without appeal, the Trump administration would break from its own pattern of refusing similar universal court orders, a hallmark of not just his White House, but of the executive branch across administrations, Seligman said.
“This is a procedural issue about which the government cares very deeply that would be true across administrations, not just this administration, the federal government,” he said. “The executive branch always seeks to retain as much freedom of action and flexibility as it can, and so acquiescing to universal injunction is just extraordinarily difficult to imagine end up being the case.”
Why universal tariff refunds have not yet been appealed
EY partner Brown said there are still key reasons why the administration would not pursue an appeal. For one, CBP has already rolled out the first phase of CAPE, and the White House may not want to interfere with weeks of work to launch the portal and the hundreds of thousands of importers trying to recoup costs from the tariffs—a move that could prove to be wildly unpopular.
“A lot of it is politics, right?” Brown said. “It’s a midterm election year. This would not be the favorable thing to do, to say, ‘Hey, we’re not going to give you your money back.’”
Brown speculated the administration may also have its hands full navigating the ongoing war in Iran, which has entered its eighth week, as well as laying the groundwork for other tariffs. The United States Trade Representative is currently investigating Section 301 tariffs, which would address “unfair” foreign trade or labor practices. Section 301 tariffs could replace the temporary Section 122 tariffs Trump imposed following the Supreme Court striking down the IEEPA levies. Trade experts have warned tariffs under Section 301 would similarly be an overreach.
Court of International Trade Judge Eaton has also signalled he was the only judge willing to hear tariff refund cases and would rule in diametrically the same way each time. That means that even if the Trump administration could get rid of the universal refund order, the courts would simply approve tariff refunds for each company individually, a more arduous process leading to the same result, Brown noted.
These reasons don’t mean the Trump administration may not still seek to appeal. Seligman argued the White House has made unpredictable moves in the past and could do so again. For example, in March, Trump decided to abandon an effort to enforce executive orders targeting law firms who previously investigated him, only to reignite a legal battle days later.
“They have reversed course in rather jarring ways in court on multiple occasions, and so I can’t rule that out,” he said.
