WH Official: Refunding IEEPA Tariffs Very Complicated, Unlikely
White House Chief Economic Adviser Kevin Hassett said that refunding tariffs paid by importers "would be very complicated." He said that those importers of record would then have to allocate that money to retailers.
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"We really expect the Supreme Court is going to find with us. And I also think that if they didn't find with us, then it's going to be pretty unlikely that they're going to call for widespread refunds because it would be an administrative problem to get those refunds out there," he said on CBS' "Face the Nation" Dec. 21.
"It is a mess. And that's why I think the Supreme Court wouldn't do it."
Hassett defended the tariffs, but also said there could be more adjustments to the scope of the actions.
"I think that most of the tariffs that we passed this year have proven their mettle. We've got still high growth, which people said we couldn't if we had tariffs," he said. He said imports from China are the lowest they've been since China entered the World Trade Organization.
"There are also things that maybe could be adjusted," he said. "I think that if there's something that's not made in the U.S. at all, that there's an appetite, and [U.S. Trade Representative] Jamieson Greer is leading the effort to study these matters, there's an appetite [to] exempt things if they're really not meant to be made in the U.S. because of, you know, like climate or things like that."