I wonder if this means businesses can request the courts order the government to repay their unconstitutionally levied duties - especially when it meant it basically destroyed their ability to do business.
Wikipedia: Sovereign immunity in the United States - https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sovereign_immunity_in_the_Unit...
It's less-clear whether the same is true for Customs and Border Patrol.
Sweeping immunity obviously doesn't exist, as evidenced by the court ruling this thread is about. The government gets sued all the time and frequently they have to pay damages.
Remember, the US was explicitly set up to see itself as an adversary. You can read this in practically any of the federalist papers. The founders saw government as a necessary evil and even talked about how democracies often become autocracies by autocrats being freely elected.
It's 250 years into that so yeah, things have changed a lot since then. But it's worth noting that a fair amount of this got embedded into the constitution. So it gets upheld as long as at least one party is adversarial to the other. Interestingly, in many ways this can be maintained even if both parties are adversaries to be people. Clearly something we don't want (cough) but that was by design. 250 years is a pretty good run
What that means for tariffs, will IANAL (pretty sure that's most of us here too). So I don't know. But I do know the gov can't be sued for damages and isn't immune from consequences. That's all I was saying
- § 1514 allows importers to protest CBP decisions on classification, valuation, duties, etc. within 180 days.
- § 1515 then provides that denied protests can be challenged by civil action in the Court of International Trade.
- These sections create the primary administrative exhaustion requirement for customs disputes.
28 U.S.C. § 1581[3] gives the Court of International Trade exclusive jurisdiction over customs matters.
- § 1581(a) specifically grants exclusive jurisdiction over § 1515 actions (denied protests).
- § 1581(i) provides residual jurisdiction over customs-related civil actions against the U.S.
- This exclusive jurisdiction means federal district courts generally cannot hear customs cases.
Tucker Act claims (28 U.S.C. § 1491[4]) allow recovery of improperly collected duties.
- While § 1491 doesn't mention customs, its broad language covering claims "founded upon the Constitution, or any Act of Congress" has been interpreted to include illegal exactions.
- Case law (e.g., Aerolineas Argentinas v. United States[5]) recognizes Tucker Act jurisdiction for customs refunds when protest remedies are unavailable or inadequate.
- However, courts generally require exhaustion of protest procedures first, making Tucker Act claims a limited fallback option.
[1]: https://www.law.cornell.edu/uscode/text/19/1514
[2]: https://www.law.cornell.edu/uscode/text/19/1515
[3]: https://www.law.cornell.edu/uscode/text/28/1581
[4]: https://www.law.cornell.edu/uscode/text/28/1491
[5]: https://law.resource.org/pub/us/case/reporter/F3/077/77.F3d....
It's sad that it's come to the point of not being able to trust official government figures. That used to be a given, unlike some other countries (China being one).
It's just tax on consumption, the companies can choose whatever way to handle that(i.e. make less profit if they have the margins, increase prices if they can still sell it, go out of business etc. ).
My point is that DOGE's total clusterf*ck of published numbers/data, whether intentionally or by incompetence, has now made me think twice about numbers being published by the government (doesn't help that Trump is an inveterate liar).
(I've been away for a while, and I'm not in the US so no "feel" for it.)
Not the highest tariffs since it wasn’t from China.
And a 170% tariff bill.
https://blog.adafruit.com/2025/05/08/high-tariffs-become-rea...
Some of these items are now completely out of stock, even after the prices went up x3 or x7.
But it was only ever a short term strategy; if they had persisted they would have had to reconsider.
You must not have looked hard.
Merchants have paid tariffs.
Albeit only for a short period of time.
And even if margin was 0, almost nothing would 3x, since the the tariffs were not (quite) that high.
Wyze importing electronics: https://9to5google.com/2025/05/01/wyze-floodlight-shipment-c...
Various accounts of individuals getting tariffs tacked on for wedding dresses: https://old.reddit.com/r/weddingplanning/comments/1kdirg4/wi...
Prices are definitely higher for products that didn't have a lot of inventory already in warehouses (mostly new models of higher priced goods, DJI, Lenovo, etc.) - that is when they're being sold at all. Quite a few products are simply out of stock now.
For cheaper things where there's still warehouses full of them, prices remain the same.