March 4, 2026 4:40 PM, EST
A U.S. judge has ordered the Trump administration to halt a key step in the tariff payment process in order to make any refunds simpler after the Supreme Court struck down the president’s global tariffs.
In a March 4 order, Judge Richard Eaton, who sits on the federal trade court in New York, ordered Customs and Border Protection to stop calculating President Donald Trump’s emergency tariffs on importers’ customs paperwork. He also questioned why the government was continuing to do so after the Supreme Court ruled the tariffs illegal.
Eaton also ordered officials to recalculate certain duties that had passed that step of the customs process, removing Trump’s contested tariffs. The judge confirmed that he has been assigned to handle all of the thousands of refund lawsuits filed in the trade court to date.
In a 6-3 decision, the Supreme Court last month found that Trump unlawfully used the International Emergency Economic Powers Act to impose so-called reciprocal tariffs on goods entering the country.
