The Trump administration will launch on Monday, April 20, the system it will use to issue refunds to American importers for $166 billion they paid in tariffs the US Supreme Court struck down in February as unlawful.
In a filing to the Court of International Trade in New York, US Customs and Border Protection said it had completed development of the initial phase of the refund system, known as CAPE. The platform will consolidate refunds so importers receive one electronic payment — with interest where applicable — rather than entry-by-entry processing. The agency plans to roll CAPE out in phases.
Agency official Brandon Lord said in a declaration that as of April 9, some 56,497 importers had completed the process to receive electronic refunds, amounting to $127 billion. More than 330,000 importers paid the tariffs on 53 million shipments of imported goods, according to court documents.
The Supreme Court ruled in February that President Donald Trump overstepped his authority in imposing sweeping global tariffs under the International Emergency Economic Powers Act, a 1977 law meant for use in national emergencies.
Lord said the agency was still considering how to process refunds on a subset of entries subject to $2.9 billion in tariffs that would normally require manual processing, warning that such a workload would divert personnel from trade operations and enforcement. Customs said CAPE would initially handle refunds on recently imported goods and straightforward entries, with many smaller importers having previously feared that refund costs would outweigh the benefits.
Trump denounced the ruling and subsequently imposed a new temporary global tariff under a different law, which is also being challenged in court.
For Sri Lankan exporters, particularly garment manufacturers who absorbed losses under the 44% tariff before the court intervened, CAPE opens a potential channel for US importer partners to recover costs. However, the replacement tariff regime means the underlying competitive disadvantage for Sri Lankan apparel in the US market remains in place, keeping UK DCTS rules-of-origin relief as the more durable counterbalance.
