The $166 Billion Question: The Tariff Refund and Where It Goes

The SCOTUS tariff refund portal opened Monday. The $166 billion will mostly reach importers. Whether it reaches the workers, retailers, and consumers who absorbed the costs downstream is a different question — and the mechanism for answering it doesn't exist.

Refund flowing to the importer node while costs distributed across the supply chain — incidence is diffuse, recovery is concentrated.
Original art by Felix Baron, Creative Director, Offworld News. AI-generated image.