Major US companies are pocketing the Trump tariff refunds and stiffing consumers. Its time to pay up

Even for an economy as large as the United States, $70 billion still counts as a significant sum of money.After the first round of President Trump’s tariffs were ruled illegal by the Supreme Court, customs officials have already issued that amount in refund checks.Here’s the problem, however: none of it appears to have been passed on to consumers in the form of lower prices.In reality, corporate America is pocketing the money — but it is also playing with fire by inviting retaliation from President Trump.Almost no major policy has ever been quite so chaotically implemented as the tariffs imposed by President Trump on the oddly named Liberation Day in April last year.The levies were charged, then changed, then suspended, then imposed all over again, before the courts finally decided the White House had exceeded its authority, and the administration instead switched to a whole new argument for taxing imports.The result? Not only has everyone been left bewildered by the changes of policy, much of the money collected the first time around now has to be sent back to the companies that paid it.In June alone, $49 billion was refunded, and so far $70 billion has been sent out, with more on the way.

In other words, serious money.But where has it all gone? After all, you would expect that cash to flow back into the economy in two possible ways.Either it goes straight to the bottom line of the companies receiving it, as a kind of one-off bonus, or else it is passed on to customers in the form of lower prices.

Judging by the data so far, remarkably little of it is showing up at the till.The US inflation rate is still running at 3.5%, more than the Federal Reserve would like.Prices are definitely not falling, that is for sure.It is hardly surprising that Democrats, and plenty of populist leaders on the right as well, are seizing on that as proof of corporate greed.Big business used the tariffs as cover to raise prices, and now that the tariffs are being unwound, it is r...