Episode summary
The Next Tariff Fight for Small Businesses: Getting Refunds
Wall Street Week
· · 11 min
Summary
Small businesses that paid President Trump’s IEEPA tariffs won a major legal victory when the Supreme Court struck them down, but the episode argues that getting the money back is now its own battle. The host frames the situation as “putting Humpty Dumpty back together again,” with refund logistics proving as difficult as the underlying court fight.
Victor Schwartz says his company, V.O.S. Selections, lost 15% of cash flow, raised prices repeatedly, and cut inventory just to keep operating. Sarah Albrecht of the Liberty Justice Center says the hardest part was never winning in court; it was forcing refunds through a process involving U.S. Customs and Border Protection, the Court of International Trade, and third-party importers. The government collected $166 billion from more than 330,000 businesses, and while a refund system was built, only $71 billion had been returned five months after the ruling.
The episode also notes that the tariff dispute is not over. Albrecht says the administration moved quickly to new Section 122 tariffs, which her team also challenged. Even so, Schwartz and Allison Budvarson of Out of the Box Manufacturing say the business damage may be permanent: cash-flow strain, delayed innovation, and a more cautious market may not be reversible with refunds alone.
Key takeaways
- Schwartz says the tariffs cut V.O.S. Selections’ cash flow by 15% and forced repeated price increases and inventory sales.
- Albrecht says the biggest fight was not winning the lawsuit but building a refund process for thousands of small businesses.
- The government collected $166 billion from more than 330,000 importers, but only $71 billion had been refunded five months after the Supreme Court ruling.
- Budvarson says tariffs hit her manufacturer from multiple angles and that refunds must flow through vendors before reaching end customers.
- Schwartz says the tariffs slowed innovation and contracted the market, damage he does not think refunds can fully erase.
Notable quotes
“This is a story about putting Humpty Dumpty back together again”
“Out of the blue, we lost 15% of our cash flow. For any business, but certainly for a small business, that was terribly impactful”
“the biggest battle was going to be after we left the courtroom and refunding the money to the thousands of small businesses across this country”
“The tariffs are not doing anything to move the supply chain in the way that they are intended to move the supply chain”
How the episode opens
Westin: This is a story about putting Humpty Dumpty back together again. Small businesses were hit hard by the sweeping tariffs President Trump imposed under the International Emergency Economic Powers Act. So you'd think they breathed a big sigh of relief when the Supreme Court struck them down.
But it turns out that getting a refund when you have overpaid is not as easy as it sounds, particularly when it's the government that has to pay you back. -One of the most significant cases that the justices have decided in recent years... -In the Supreme Court dealing President Donald Trump, a major blow.
-The president does not have the authority to impose some of his sweeping global tariffs. Westin: In April of last year, President Trump announced sweeping tariffs on imports from some 90 countries. -A historic executive order instituting reciprocal tariffs.
Westin: Which hit businesses throughout the U.S. that had to pay the tariffs to bring in parts and goods. Victor Schwartz's V.O.S.
Selections is one of those businesses. What did the tariffs do to your business? -Well, it's terribly impactful.
Out of the blue, we lost 15% of our cash flow. For any business, but certainly for a small business, that was terribly impactful. We had to make some quick decisions.
One thing we had to look at is where can we raise prices to cover the tariffs? How much could we raise prices on which products? I tell you, we did not even begin to cover the tariff impact in terms of our price increases.
So there was that. What kind of inventory we could jettison because we had to come up with all this capital. Where's that going to come from?
I don't have access to the credit markets, you know. So where are we going to come up with that money?
From the episode’s captions: roughly the first two minutes, lightly cleaned. Keep watching on YouTube →
Topics
- ieepa tariffs
- supreme court ruling
- small business refunds
- importers
- cash flow impact
Watch the episode
Watch “The Next Tariff Fight for Small Businesses: Getting Refunds” on YouTube
Summary, takeaways and quote selection by Octagon. Quotes are short excerpts; the full conversation is in the episode.
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