By Andrew Miller
It’s been just over a year since “Liberation Day,” when the Trump administration imposed new tariffs on April 2, 2025.
Instead of foreign suppliers paying up, American businesses took the biggest hit. Unable to pass the full cost onto consumers, many dipped into reserves, cut expenses, or simply absorbed the damage.
This February, the Supreme Court struck the tariffs down. By then, it was too late.
The government already collected roughly $166 billion in tariff payments. Worse, there’s no system in place to return them. In fact, it doesn’t even exist yet.
U.S. Customs and Border Protection is currently building that infrastructure from scratch. The deadline for Phase 1 of the new processing system is April 20. That’s when the government will begin accepting tariff return claims.
Fortunately, the program appears to be on track.
On April 1, Senior Judge Richard Eaton of the US Court of International Trade concluded that the government is making satisfactory progress towards meeting that deadline. Tomorrow, US Customs is due to publish a status report on their progress.
While the Phase 1 target date is just a week away, refunds won’t happen overnight. Each claim goes through a review and liquidation process that can take up to 45 days per entry. That’s for the most straightforward cases. More complex or finalized entries have no clear timeline at all.
How long could it actually take for businesses to receive their money back?
Consider the closest historical parallel: a similar court-ordered refund process for the Harbor Maintenance Tax took four years to implement. Customs processed approximately $730 million in refunds across 100,000 claims.
The tariffs from the International Emergency Economic Powers Act (IEEPA) situation involve $166 billion across more than 330,000 importers. At a press conference in February, Treasury Secretary Scott Bessent said that litigation could drag on for up to five years.
More than 3,000 lawsuits have already been filed against the government by businesses trying to secure their refunds through the courts. Most aren’t large corporations, but rather small businesses that paid duties they couldn’t afford.
With operating costs showing no sign of slowing down, businesses that need capital are getting creative. As a workaround, they’re using their expected refunds as collateral to take out a loan.
The institutions offering these arrangements include commercial banks, hedge funds, and private credit funds. These lenders typically work with large corporations.
That option is likely off the table for most small businesses. Even for those with access, borrowing against a refund that may take years means carrying a loan with no guaranteed exit.
Small business owners can’t afford to plan around money that may not arrive on time. Waiting on Washington to close the gap between what you’re owed and what you need today isn’t an option when bills are due now.
Whether you’re managing tighter margins, rising input costs, or just the general unpredictability of the past year, Signet Capital Group can help you understand what your real financing options look like. Contact us now to explore your options.
The tariff saga is a useful reminder that government policy moves on its own timeline, not yours. The businesses that come out of this strongest will be the ones that built capital relationships before the next disruption arrives.