Betting against the Trump tariffs
The right of Trump to impose tariffs at will and without Congressional approval is headed to the SCOTUS. What’s the odds that the tariffs will be overturned?
Turns out there’s a market in tariff refunds if the SCOTUS rules against Trump:
“In July the US government brought in $29.6 billion in tariff revenue compared to $8.7 billion in July 2024. So that’s more than $20 billion in probably illegal tariffs before many of them had even kicked in. The current market for these refund rights is already in the tens of billions and could hit the hundreds of billions by years end. According to Wired, Cantor said in July that it had “the capacity to buy the rights to hundreds of millions of dollars” of tariff refunds. So the amounts we’re talking about, both at risk and in potential windfalls, is very, very big.”
And Trump’s commerce secretary stands to gain from insider trading.
“Lutnick can’t be certain what’s in a judge’s mind any more than Trump can. But he’ll have lots of visibility into what the government’s lawyers think, how they rate their odds of success, what their arguments will be. On top of that, given the immense corruption of the current Supreme Court I would put say there’s at least a 50%-50% shot that Trump and thus Lutnick will gets signals from one or more of the justices about how the Court will rule. Any way you look at this it’s corrupt as hell. And on a more metaphoric level it typifies the heads I win tails you lose rules the billionaire class and their sub-billionaire toadies live by.”
Just another Trump Administration grift.
Lutnick could make millions if SCOTUS overturns tariffs
Why wouldn’t the Supreme Court give him whatever he wants like they usually do?
@Jack,
Dunno. Ask Lutnick.
It all make perfect sense when you realize he works for Russia, not America …
If we see all of this and I agree, why doesn’t the lamestream media? Are they just too much in the pocket of the oligarchs? The tariffs never made any sense except as a Trump grift and a cudgel that he could use against our friends. I am wondering what the effect of the delay in rescinding the tariffs will have on consumers. Will they delay purchases in hopes that tariffs will get dropped?
I can only speak for myself, but aside from necessary purchases I am going to defer until I have a good handle on what the cost is really going to be. I would have purchased a new car later this year, because the model I want would not be available until then. Now there is a good chance it may be over 50K with the tariffs. Not worth it at that price. There are interesting cars coming out next year as well, when we may have some resolution on the tariff situation. My food and utility bills are going up enough to put a damper on unnecessary spending.
Tariffs may have proven to be illegal, but no refunds, please. An argument frequently made against these tariffs is that the ones who pay the tariffs simply collect compensatory pricing from purchasers further downstream. This is a good argument and, if we take the discussion on SS CPI seriously, I think nearly everyone thinks it true. JaneE thinks it true of a prospective car purchase, for example. I suppose a small percentage might be paid to Treasury by the actual final party, but very little. Maybe refund tariffs collected in the final 30 days or so as compensation for inventory. Otherwise, just let it go.
@Eric,
Why are you fine with the Trump Administration keeping the money they illegally confiscated from American businesses?
Joel, I’m not fine with that, but are American businesses going to track everyone down that paid them extra for tariffed goods? No they won’t. Of course they won’t otherwise there would not be a speculative secondary market in these possible refunds. They’ll pocket it. So if my family and I incurred $1500 of increased prices due to illegal tariffs and you aren’t returning it to me, yes I would rather the US Treasury keep it than hand it out to companies already compensated by consumers for their tariff costs. The discussion on SS CPI was based on the idea that tariff costs flow down to end consumers or am I taking crazy pills here?
@Eric,
LOL!
The tariffs have been flowing to the federal government. You would rather the US Treasury keep it. You just said so yourself. So much for “free markets.”
WWSD (What Would Stalin Do)?
To be honest, I don’t see anything other than refunding to the specific tariff-paying parties, which will be awesome for them because they already charged their customers for the tariffs anyway. If and when that were to happen, I’d expect a lot of yelling about greedy corporations and billionaires to occur.