FedEx takes tariff fight to court after Supreme Court rebuke of Trump trade powers

FedEx has moved from absorbing the cost of last year’s tariff shock to trying to claw the money back, suing the US government for a refund just days after the Supreme Court ruled that President Donald Trump did not have the authority to impose the duties in the first place.

The case, filed at the US Court of International Trade against Customs and Border Protection and its commissioner Rodney Scott, turns a constitutional ruling into a financial test: what happens to the billions already collected under a policy the court says should never have existed in its current form. In its complaint, the company says it has “suffered injury” and is seeking a “full refund”, framing the lawsuit as a necessary step to protect its rights as an importer of record.

The legal backdrop is unusually clear on one point and deeply uncertain on everything else. On Friday, the Supreme Court found that the White House overstepped by using the 1977 International Emergency Powers Act to impose sweeping tariffs in peacetime, ruling that such powers belong to Congress. What the decision did not do was explain how — or even whether — the government must return the estimated $142bn to $175bn collected under the scheme.

That gap is what is now driving litigation across the retail and logistics world. FedEx had already warned that the tariffs and the simultaneous removal of duty-free treatment for small packages under $800 would cost it about $1bn in 2026. Other major import-reliant companies, including Costco, Revlon and EssilorLuxottica, are pursuing similar refund claims, while business groups are pressing for a centralised process that does not yet exist.

For now, companies are operating in a legal limbo. FedEx said it had “taken necessary action to protect the company’s rights as an importer of record to seek duty refunds from US Customs and Border Protection”, while acknowledging that “no refund process has been established by regulators or the courts”.

The broader trade landscape remains unsettled. Trump has promised to replace the struck-down duties with a 15 percent global tariff under a different legal framework, meaning that even as past collections are challenged, new ones could arrive. Meanwhile, a range of other tariffs — including those imposed under Section 232 and Section 301 — remain in force.