Trump's Trials - Businesses are getting refunds from Trump's tariffs. Will customers get any?

Episode Date: August 24, 2026

Companies have received tariff refunds. What about consumers? Some companies are providing refunds while others decline. NPR's Stephan Bisaha reports. Support public media with NPR+ and enjoy perks for over 25 podcasts like this one. This show’s perks include sponsor-free listening. Learn more at plus.npr.org.See pcm.adswizz.com for information about our collection and use of personal data for sponsorship and to manage your podcast sponsorship preferences.NPR Privacy Policy

You're listening to Trump's terms. I'm Scott Detrow. The president has both an ability and a willingness to use the power of his office, to think outside the box. Nobody makes a better deal than President Trump. We're going to do better and better and better. Nobody can believe what they're watching. Every episode, we bring you one story from NPR's recent coverage of the 47th president. With a focus on ways his administration is pushing the boundaries of presidential power.

Here's the latest from NPR. From NPR News, I'm Leila Falded. The Trump administration is paying U.S. businesses billions of dollars. Reimbursements for some of the tariffs they paid that the Supreme Court ruled in February were illegal. But will any of that money make its way back to shoppers? NPR Stephen Passaha talked to one customer who's still waiting. When we're talking tariff refunds, we're talking more than $160 billion. And Sarah Alonzo wants her.

cut. I'm like, well, give me my money. I was like, open the door, cut the check and give me my money. Money that she paid for a wheelchair. She uses the get around Tampa, Florida, after her old one finally fell apart. The new one is both powered and lightweight. About 75 pounds. It folds. It fits into just about any vehicle very easily. You know, it's just the perfect chair for me. But it's made in China. When she bought the new chair last year, tariffs on Chinese goods were a sky high when 145%. Alonzo paid an extra $3,500. There's no reason that I had to pay, you know, double for this chair. None. And, you know, the federal government should give me my money back. The thing is, though, the federal government

can't give her that money back. That's because she did not pay the tariff directly to the government. Like most people, she paid a business. In her case, UPS, which imported the chair. Now, the government is refunding UPS. And UPS told her, in an email her refund is in the works. When I got that email, I was like, well, you know, maybe there's hope. Now, shipping companies have to give the money back because they explicitly charged customers' tariff fees. That's according to the dean of Syracuse University's College of Law, Terrence Lau. He says if FedEx got charged 100 bucks to import your package, they then billed you 100 bucks.

And now that FedEx and UPS have received a refund of that $100 from the federal government, they are absolutely obligated to return it to the person they collected from. Otherwise, it would be a pretty open and shut lawsuit against them for unjust enrichment. UPS, DHS, and FedEx all say they are returning tariff dollars to customers. But do not expect the same from retailers. Many of them did not spell out how much customers were paying for tariffs and instead bake that cost directly into higher prices. So it's hard, maybe even impossible, for the companies to know how much extra each

shopper paid because of tariffs. It's like the retailer stirred the tax into the batter. So once it's cooked into the cake, you can't just back it out ingredient by ingredient anymore because it's not separated. Michael Etlinger is a senior fellow at the Institute on Taxation and Economic Policy. He says customers and businesses share the cost of tariffs. But for the most part, businesses are the ones keeping the refund. It's all just a giant transfer from consumers to corporations, which you can't really design a

worse tax than that. Some retailers like Walmart say they'll use tariff refunds to lower prices. And companies like Costco and Nintendo are facing class action lawsuits from shoppers demanding refunds. Etlinger says, while some businesses are benefiting. It's important to keep an eye on what the real sin here is, which is that the government imposed illegal tariffs. Sandra Alonzo heard from UPS about a month ago about her refund being processed, but hasn't received anything yet. It'd be nice to update me because I sure would like that money. It would be very useful right now, considering how expensive everything is now a year later. UPS says it takes up to three months to get the refunds it receives from the government to customers. Of course,

Alonzo's paid higher prices at plenty of retailers because of tariffs. So for her, this is one refund on the way and many more unlikely to come. Stephen Besaha and PR News. A note before we go, if you value this show and want to help keep it going, a free and totally easy way to support us is to rate and review Trump's terms on the platform where you listen in a world of algorithms that goes a long way toward helping us reach new listeners. If you have left a review in the past, thank you so much. I'm Scott Detrow. Thanks for listening to Trump's Terms from NPR.