‘Damage from the chaotic tariff regime cannot be refunded’: The $100 billion in refunds have wiped out revenue the import taxes brought in since May

The magnitude of tariff refunds the Trump administration must dole out is now outpacing how much money it’s bringing in through the import taxes, and it’s dealing a new blow of damage to the U.S. economy, one think tank warned.

In May, when the U.S.

Customs and Border Protection (CBP) rolled out its online tariff refund portal, the U.S.

Treasury refunded $21.97 billion, exceeding the $21.93 billion it collected that month—and a complete reversal of the month before, when the Treasury distributed only about $2 billion in tariff refunds, according to a report published this month by the Tax Foundation, a tax policy nonprofit, citing monthly Treasury statements.

In June, the balance sheet became even more lopsided, with $49.18 billion refunded as compared to the $23.63 billion collected, resulting in a net customs revenue of negative $25.56 billion.

Tariff revenue makes up just a small fraction of the government’s total revenue, but the Tax Foundation warned the chaos surrounding the tariffs and their legal fallout has had an outsized economic impact, exemplified by the government hemorrhaging billions of dollars monthly through refunds.

“While importers will experience some relief by receiving refunds, the economic damage from the chaotic tariff regime cannot be refunded—and the remaining tariffs means economic damage will continue to grow,” the report said.

The economic fallout of Trump’s tariffs After collecting $166 billion in revenue from tariffs imposed under the International Emergency Economic Powers Act (IEEPA), the Supreme Court struck down the levies in February, resulting in a mandate forcing the Trump administration to redistribute the income to up to the 330,000 eligible importers who footed the bill for the levies .

While President Donald Trump has tried to rebuild his tariff policy in the aggregate—imposing duties under Sections 122, 232, and 301 of the 1974 Trade Act—he has not been able to recoup the money lost through refunds.

The continued drain on tariff revenues represents a failure of the Trump administration to deliver on its lofty promises of using the income to reduce the federal deficit and offset tax cuts from the One Big Beautiful Bill act, argued Erica York, vice president of federal tax policy at the Tax Foundation.

“The president himself and the administration have been talking so much about how they’re going to raise a lot of revenue with tariffs, how they’re going to supposedly fix the fiscal situation with tariffs,” York told Fortune .

“And that really mismatches what we’re seeing play out in the data, which is that they have relied on really shaky legal grounds to try to impose these tariffs.” Meanwhile, tariffs have increased inflation, with the Federal Reserve Bank of St.