this post was submitted on 03 Sep 2025
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The majority of the sweeping tariffs Donald Trump imposed during his second term face one final litmus test that will determine whether he can continue to levy them – and also whether businesses are eligible for massive refunds.

That potentially dramatic turn in the tariff saga comes after a federal appeals court ruled on Friday that Trump unlawfully leaned on the International Emergency Economic Powers Act (IEEPA) to impose across-the-board duties on countries.

Trump had used those powers to push import tax rates as high as 50% on India and Brazil – and as high as 145% on China earlier this year.

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[–] omgboom@lemmy.dbzer0.com 331 points 3 days ago (11 children)

Not only will the consumers never see a dime of any of the money if it's refunded, the companies aren't going to lower prices because you've already absorbed the price shock.

[–] whiwake@lemmy.cafe 137 points 3 days ago (4 children)

Right. Everything today is about softening you up. They say, we will kill you—and you panic—then they roll it back to just losing an arm, and you’re happy about it.

[–] 13igTyme@piefed.social 36 points 3 days ago (15 children)

Like a frog in boiling water.

[–] givesomefucks@lemmy.world 49 points 3 days ago (2 children)

No, that's the ratchet effect.

A frog boil is when you slowly raise the temperature so the frogs don't even realize they're being boiled.

An example of frog boiling is having national guard just roam around not doing anything. People are pissed out of principle, but they're not really doing anything for people to riot over. By the time they are, some people will be used to it already and not as pissed as if it was all at once.

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[–] CmdrShepard49@sh.itjust.works 22 points 3 days ago

This is called "price anchoring" when used in business. They throw out an outrageously high number to start and then follow it up with something less to make it seem like a good deal when that was really the price they wanted all along.

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[–] ericatty@infosec.pub 17 points 3 days ago (1 children)

Ianal, I really hope there is some sort of class action that can be done to force companies to pass that back to consumers.

It should be easy enough to pass through to all the electronic pay methods.

Or force markup items to all be put on massive sale until an equal amount has been sold to make up the sales at markup.

There are no perfect solutions, some people will still make out like bandits.

But jfc, just releasing billions to these companies will only benefit the C-Level and maybe some shareholders, the people already benefiting, not the ones feeling the pain.

[–] ragebutt@lemmy.dbzer0.com 23 points 3 days ago (2 children)

A class action just passes the money from one elite class (corporations) to another (class action lawyers). Consumers will get a virtual prepaid debit card for $1.97 in 5 years that can’t be spent anywhere because it can’t be used online and it costs $5 to have them mail you a physical card

Should get out guillotines

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[–] ALLGLORYTOHYPNOTOAD@lemmy.world 112 points 3 days ago (4 children)

That money should go to us because the business passed the price increases on to us!

[–] MuskyMelon@lemmy.world 43 points 3 days ago (1 children)

The businesses will raise a lawsuit that the money is theirs and you will lose again.

[–] 3abas@lemmy.world 40 points 3 days ago (1 children)

And the prices won't go back down.

[–] shplane@lemmy.world 22 points 3 days ago

And half the country will blame immigrants and trans people

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[–] radiofreebc@lemmy.world 76 points 3 days ago (1 children)

Small businesses, back of the line. Gotta make sure those billionaires don't lose out first.

[–] SpaceNoodle@lemmy.world 25 points 3 days ago* (last edited 3 days ago)

Wouldn't bring back the small businesses that have already been killed anyway. My favorite coffee shop just closed, and my independent artisan friends are barely selling anything any more.

[–] RememberTheApollo_@lemmy.world 63 points 3 days ago (2 children)

All that money will go to the businesses, you’ll get a coupon for $1 off and a free credit check.

[–] Decq@lemmy.world 34 points 3 days ago (5 children)

Wouldn't surprise if this is part of the scam. Put on tarrifs, hike prices. Let the customer pay and then give companies a rebate with tax money. So the average citizen is charged twice. And of course those price hikes will only go partially down. So the consumer keeps getting screwed.

[–] gAlienLifeform@lemmy.world 14 points 2 days ago

Soon "See, this is yet another example of why we can't trust the government to do anything right and why we should defund and shutter all of our public institutions." - moderate pundit on well respected mainstream news channel

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[–] Mobiuthuselah@mander.xyz 56 points 3 days ago (3 children)

Was it not the end consumer who paid those tariffs?? Frankly, I'd rather it be given back to the business at least, but let's not pretend that they didn't extract it from their customers. End it so that other companies can't as easily gouge based on the idea of tariffs.

[–] hitmyspot@aussie.zone 15 points 3 days ago (2 children)

Yes, the business just collected it. However, it would also depend on whether they upped their prices to do so.

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[–] SlippiHUD@lemmy.world 53 points 3 days ago (6 children)

How far does this refund go? My distributor paid the tarrifs and then passed that cost onto me, which I passed onto my customers.

Will my customers, distributors, or myself be refunded? I assume just my distributor since they directly paid the tarrif. And I doubt prices will come down when tarrifs end, so everything is permanently more expensive for no fucking reason, and the top middle man just boosted his profit margin through the roof.

[–] moakley@lemmy.world 17 points 3 days ago (3 children)

So that would mean that the Trump tariffs were sending American money overseas for no reason. I doubt it'll actually happen, but holy shit is Trump an incompetent idiot.

[–] SlippiHUD@lemmy.world 20 points 2 days ago (6 children)

No, the US company recieving the import pays the tarrif to the US government.

But yes, Trump is an idiot.

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[–] cronenthal@discuss.tchncs.de 52 points 3 days ago (2 children)

So the idiot who managed to ruin every business he ever owned created an absolute clusterfuck running the US, who could've known?

[–] BussyGyatt@feddit.org 19 points 3 days ago* (last edited 3 days ago)

Hey now, he only serially ruined businesses in order to enrich himself. Dodging taxes and shit like that makes him a good businessman, actually. Just ask my old boss. He'll tell you all about trump's genius business acumen in excruciating detail all day long. Yes, he does own his own business, no it's not doing well but he's got a corvette, so he's pretty sure he's right.

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[–] BarneyPiccolo@lemmy.today 46 points 2 days ago (4 children)

Am I getting a refund on the higher prices I'm paying because of tariffs?

[–] NateNate60@lemmy.world 45 points 2 days ago (4 children)

The tariffs will go away, but the companies have realised that you're okay with paying $10 for something that used to cost $8 anyway so you'll be paying $10 from now on

[–] BarneyPiccolo@lemmy.today 21 points 2 days ago (1 children)

The only solution is to confiscate all wealth over $100 million, and use it to establish Health Care 4 All, free college/trade, UBI, minimum living wage, public services, etc.

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[–] phoenixz@lemmy.ca 44 points 2 days ago (2 children)

Eehhh, consumers paid this, not the businesses. This way businesses would essentially get a bonus

[–] Treczoks@lemmy.world 30 points 2 days ago

That's the point of Republican business support. Remember COVID, where businesses got money to "survive"?

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[–] JustEnoughDucks@feddit.nl 39 points 2 days ago (1 children)

People haven't caught on to the grift yet. One of the people in the committee who runs the tariff decisions literally runs a financial/law institution that since the tariffs started, has been contracting with companies to pay a portions (10, 20, 40%) of the tariffs to "ease the load on the companies" but they retain the rights, in the case of what is going on i.e. tariffs being recalled and paid back, to take 100% of the tariff payback.

So a government official is steering the tariff policy to essentially steal money from companies with some alight risk of the tariffs not getting overturned. Crazy grift.

[–] WanderWisley@lemmy.world 35 points 2 days ago (2 children)

Spoiler alert: even if Donny loses this battle he won’t pay anyone anything he never has and never will admit to losing or owning anything to anyone.

[–] Tinidril@midwest.social 19 points 1 day ago

It's not Donny's money. What will happen is that importers will pass the tariffs onto consumers, as they pretty much have to, then the tariffs will be overturned and the money given back to importers, thus robbing regular people once again and transferring wealth to the capitalists.

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[–] njm1314@lemmy.world 34 points 2 days ago

Oh so we get to pay twice then. Great.

[–] drmoose@lemmy.world 31 points 3 days ago (3 children)

how would refund like this even work? Many businesses closed shop entirely due to these tarrifs, could they sue the government too? This would be crazy and this massive overhead risk could block the entire thing.

[–] bigfondue@lemmy.world 41 points 3 days ago* (last edited 3 days ago) (1 children)

This is why huge policy changes are discussed and planned for years. One guy being able say "Tariffs starting on Monday!" is fucking idiotic.

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[–] LoafedBurrito@lemmy.world 30 points 2 days ago (1 children)

None of us will see any money refunded. Remember that this is all planned out to make products more expensive for americans, so we get used to the higher prices. Then the companies with hundreds of millions in profit can make more profit when costs for them go down, they keep our prices the same and also SHRINK the size of the product.

Corporations are stealing from Americans every day and politicians are all in on the scam, so no one will do anything about it.

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[–] TipRing@lemmy.world 27 points 3 days ago (1 children)

Surely the price hikes will reverse at that point and won't just remain higher indefinitely causing another price/price inflationary spiral.

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[–] jordanlund@lemmy.world 24 points 3 days ago (1 children)

$200 billion / 330 million Americans = $606 each. More or less.

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[–] Sam_Bass@lemmy.world 23 points 3 days ago (5 children)

Never mind the consumers eh? WE are the ones most directly affected. Businesses lost nothing

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[–] Formfiller@lemmy.world 22 points 3 days ago (5 children)

When do Trump and the magats drink the poison koolaid? I’m getting impatient

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[–] Chainweasel@lemmy.world 21 points 3 days ago

The Businesses didn't pay the tariffs, We did.

[–] aeternum@lemmy.blahaj.zone 19 points 3 days ago

much like all the other illegal shit dumpy mcshitpants has done, who is gonna tell him he can't have his big boy tariffs?

[–] Alwaysnownevernotme@lemmy.world 15 points 3 days ago

And the prices? Oh nothing will fundamentally change 😉

[–] _wizard@lemmy.world 15 points 3 days ago (2 children)

How much of that will be pocketed by his cronies because the rules for payout were vague enough for their random LLC.

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[–] pennomi@lemmy.world 14 points 3 days ago

Around $6000 to my small business. I’m sure the Supreme Court will side with Trump though.

[–] rhvg@lemmy.world 13 points 3 days ago

No worries , you have a supreme court good at ruling by vibe.

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