Bessent: US would have to give back half of tariffs if it loses at Supreme Court

[thesquanderer]

8. Yes, they could only give them back to the importer who paid them in the first place.

Only the importer would have the ability to know how much was passed along to their customers, on which purchases. They would be in a position to at least theoretically provide refunds, but I doubt there's any realistic way to compel them to do so. Moreover, the importer likely did not sell directly to the final consumer, so there could be one ore more additional links in the chain that could have marked up the cost accordingly before reaching the consumer. So yeah... it's a mess, and the consumer is the likely loser.