(The Center Square) – Refunds to families and businesses in North Carolina totaling $3.5 billion are being sought by the first-term Democratic attorney general from the Republican majority chambers of Congress.
Jeff Jackson, former member of the U.S. House of Representatives, said a U.S. Supreme Court ruling the Republican Trump administration’s tariffs were unlawful provides grounds for the refunds to the state’s more than 11.1 million population and its businesses. The secretary of state’s office has more than 4 million business or recreational licenses, and estimates project 65%-75% of the population is age 18 or over.
The math works out to a few hundred dollars each if dispersed evenly.
“North Carolina’s businesses and families paid $3.5 billion for tariffs that a court has now ruled were illegal,” Jackson says. “That money came straight out of people’s grocery bills and small business budgets. The administration told the court it would pay people back, and now they need to do it.”
A message to leaders of the two chambers – Sens. John Thune, R-S.D., and Charles Schumer, D-N.Y., and Reps. Mike Johnson, R-La., and Hakeem Jeffries, D-N.Y. – on the joint letterhead of New York Attorney General Letitia James and Oregon Attorney General Dan Rayfield is signed by 16 others including Jackson.
The politicians’ petition says businesses and consumers nationwide “paid approximately $166 billion in unlawful International Emergency Economic Powers Act tariffs.”
Jackson and colleagues ask for reimbursement with interest. The coalition seeks “a fair, uniform and fast process for all affected importers to get refunds.”
