Government attorneys argue that a judge at the U.S. Court of International Trade exceeded his authority when he ordered U.S. Customs and Border Protection (CBP) to refund all companies that paid tariffs declared illegal in February—including firms that never filed suit in trade court. The tariffs had been imposed under the International Emergency Economic Powers Act (IEEPA), a statute the Supreme Court determined did not authorize such levies.

The administration filed its appeal with the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Federal Circuit—the appellate court that reviews trade court rulings—in June and submitted its opening brief on Monday. In the filing, government lawyers draw on a Supreme Court case from June 2025 concerning birthright citizenship. A portion of that ruling curtailed the use of universal injunctions—court orders that extend rulings to all affected parties, not just the specific litigants before the court.

Judge Richard Eaton, who is presiding over the tariff cases at the Court of International Trade, has maintained that the restrictions on universal injunctions do not apply here. The government contends otherwise.

"The CIT's universal injunctions, requiring the government to refund IEEPA duties for all importers (including non-party importers), cannot possibly be squared with CASA"—the case that constrained universal injunctions—the government wrote in its brief.

The bulk of tariff refunds have already been distributed. CBP has processed and certified $100 billion in refunds to date. The dispute centers on companies whose tariff payments cleared the customs process and whose entries were finalized. Under a Congressional rule, CBP is barred from reprocessing tariffs once the administrative refund window has closed. Those companies retain the right to pursue litigation to recover their funds, the government argued.

"The Court of International Trade (CIT) has already entered hundreds of such orders in suits brought by importers seeking that relief, and importers who have not yet brought such suits are free to do so within the statute of limitations," government lawyers wrote in the brief.

The case tests the boundaries of how far courts can extend remedies when executive actions are struck down, an issue that has grown more consequential as the Supreme Court has moved to rein in nationwide court orders across multiple areas of law.

Barry Appleton, a law professor and co-director of New York Law School's Center for International Law, said the government appears to hold the stronger legal position, but cautioned that businesses—particularly smaller ones—could bear the brunt of the consequences.

"The government took this money under a law the Supreme Court said never authorized (tariffs). Getting it back should not turn on whether a business could afford to sue," Appleton said. "Refunding an unlawful tariff should not be a reward for litigating. … You cannot really ask a small company to sue for money it does not know it is owed, on a deadline it has never heard of."