In a court filing submitted on March 7, 2026, U.S. Customs and Border Protection (CBP) formally acknowledged that it cannot immediately comply with a federal court order to begin issuing refunds for tariffs the Supreme Court ruled unconstitutional last month. The admission has stunned importers who anticipated swift relief following the landmark IEEPA ruling, introducing a new layer of operational uncertainty into an already volatile U.S. trade policy landscape.
The chain of events began on February 20, 2026, when the U.S. Supreme Court ruled that President Trump’s use of emergency powers under the International Emergency Economic Powers Act (IEEPA) to impose tariffs was not legally authorized. CBP stopped collecting IEEPA duties on February 24. This week, the Court of International Trade directed CBP to disregard IEEPA tariffs when finalizing the liquidation of goods entering the country.
The Scale of the Problem: 53 Million Entries and $166 Billion in Deposits
The numbers alone make clear why CBP is struggling. As of March 4, 2026, the agency estimates there have been roughly 53 million entries subject to IEEPA tariffs. The corresponding deposits — money already paid by importers — total approximately $166 billion. Completing manual validation of refund requests for all IEEPA tariffs would require over 4 million labor hours, according to CBP’s own estimates.
CBP’s Automated Commercial Environment (ACE) automatically liquidates entries every Friday morning. Earlier this week, more than 700,000 entries were scheduled to go through this process, of which approximately 339,000 were subject to IEEPA tariffs. In other words, even as CBP scrambles to set up a refund mechanism, the system is still locking in tariff amounts on hundreds of thousands of new entries every week — widening the refund gap in real time.
“In other words: the court ordered refunds — but the operational mechanics of actually issuing them are still being built.” — James Kim, International Trade Partner, ArentFox Schiff
Why ACE Cannot Simply Be Switched Off: The 300-Day Liquidation Clock
A critical technical constraint amplifies the urgency. CBP uses an automated process to liquidate entries roughly 300 days after they enter the country, locking in the tariff amount owed on each shipment. Because of this mechanism, the filing states, “it is not possible for CBP to immediately prevent additional entries from liquidating with IEEPA duties.”
Stopping the automated liquidation process would require either manually extending liquidation dates for all affected entries — a massively labor-intensive task — or reprogramming ACE to halt all scheduled liquidations, which would disrupt the entire import settlement system. CBP noted it cannot quickly or efficiently isolate entries charged specifically with IEEPA tariffs, partly because some importers combine all applicable levies into a single payment, making IEEPA-specific amounts difficult to extract.
The 300-day clock also creates a hard deadline for importers: any entry liquidated before a refund mechanism is established may have its IEEPA tariff amount permanently locked in. For companies that imported large volumes during peak IEEPA enforcement in 2025, the recovery window is narrowing by the week.
The 45-Day Roadmap: How CBP Plans to Rebuild Its Refund Pipeline
Rather than immediately complying, CBP has proposed a 45-day implementation timeline to develop a new ACE-based refund processing workflow. Under the proposed mechanism, importers would be required to submit detailed entries subject to IEEPA tariffs directly to CBP. ACE would then validate each submission, recalculate the tariffs owed (stripping out IEEPA levies), and CBP personnel would verify and certify each refund before aggregating totals.
- Step 1: Importers submit IEEPA-affected entry details to CBP
- Step 2: ACE validates submissions and recalculates duty amounts minus IEEPA levies
- Step 3: CBP staff manually verify and certify refunds
- Step 4: System aggregates totals by importer and liquidation date for disbursement
The 45-day target is not a guarantee. CBP’s filing describes a system that will still require significant human oversight at every step. Given that even routine liquidation of 700,000 weekly entries strains existing capacity, the additional burden of a new refund validation layer represents a substantial operational build-out on a compressed timeline.
The Electronic Registration Gap: 7,700 Refunds Already Stranded
An immediate complication has already emerged for some importers. Since CBP ceased issuing paper-based refunds in February 2026, the agency estimates it has been unable to process 7,700 refunds because many shippers have yet to register for electronic refunds in the ACE system. This gap predates the IEEPA ruling and represents a known but unresolved vulnerability in the refund pipeline.
The practical implication is clear: importers who have not yet registered for electronic disbursements through ACE will be unable to receive IEEPA refunds even after the 45-day mechanism is built. For companies that paid significant IEEPA tariffs during 2025, failure to register could mean forfeiting refunds entirely if liquidation clocks expire before the administrative process is completed.
James Kim of ArentFox Schiff offered the clearest summary: “For importers that paid IEEPA duties, the key takeaway is that the refund process is likely coming, but not immediately. Much will depend on how the court responds to CBP’s inability to comply and whether this proposed ACE mechanism becomes the pathway for issuing refunds.”
Three-Party Dynamics: Courts, CBP, and Importers in a New Legal Standoff
The situation has created an unusual triangular tension between three actors with divergent interests and timelines. The Court of International Trade has issued a direct order and expects compliance. CBP is a massive administrative agency constrained by legacy technology and finite personnel. Importers — many of them mid-sized manufacturers and retailers — are waiting for relief that was promised by the Supreme Court but may not materialize for months.
Three scenarios are now in play:
- Optimistic scenario: CBP completes the ACE rebuild within 45 days; importers register and submit claims promptly; refunds begin flowing in Q2 2026; market confidence stabilizes.
- Base scenario: Technical delays push the mechanism’s launch to Q3 2026; some importers miss the window due to liquidation lock-ins or failure to register; litigation increases as disputes over specific entries multiply.
- Pessimistic scenario: Courts reject CBP’s 45-day plan; Congress or the White House intervenes; full disbursements are delayed into late 2026 or 2027.
Supply Chain Implications: Execution Risk in Trade Policy Reversal
For supply chain professionals, this episode introduces a concept that deserves more attention: execution risk in trade policy reversal. While the trade policy community has spent years analyzing the risks of tariff escalation, the CBP filing reveals that the risks of tariff de-escalation can be equally disruptive — particularly when administrative systems are not built to handle sudden policy reversals at scale.
For companies that restructured their supply chains to absorb IEEPA tariff costs — including some that shifted sourcing from China to Vietnam, Mexico, or India — the prospect of partial IEEPA refunds creates a complex recalculation problem. Were the costs of supply chain diversification justified given that tariff costs may now be partially recoverable? How should contract clauses allocating tariff costs between buyers and sellers be revisited?
The broader lesson: U.S. trade policy uncertainty is no longer limited to whether tariffs will be imposed, but now extends to whether, when, and how they will be unwound. For importers and exporters navigating the 2026 trade environment, building contingency planning capabilities around policy reversal scenarios — not just escalation scenarios — has become an operational necessity.
Related Reading
- Tariff Volatility and the Irreversible Regionalization of Global Supply Chains in 2026
- Thomson Reuters 2026 Global Trade Report: 72% of Trade Professionals Name U.S. Tariffs Top Risk
This article is AI-assisted and reviewed by the SCI.AI editorial team before publication.
Source: supplychaindive.com
