Skip to content

Comment on Tariff's found illegal, but will stay for now

Comments

What does it look like when everyone sues to claw back the unlawful tariffs paid? YC startup opportunity (take a cut of whatever you claw back for customers).

This would be hard to do given sovereign immunity. I highly doubt you'd get them to waive their immunity for an "official act" done by the President. The FTCA does allow for some exceptions but it's pretty narrow.

Trump faces returning $100bn in tariffs after court ruling - https://www.thetimes.com/article/a09594e1-46f2-413a-8cba-507... - September 1st, 2025

Researchers at the Capital Economics consultancy said that if the Supreme Court agreed that Trump had abused his presidential powers the “Treasury would still need to return most of the now close to $100 billion in additional customs duties collected”. They added that countries and trading blocs, such as Britain and the European Union, could also “backtrack on any preliminary [trade] agreements”.

TLDR the other comment's citations: The USG has already waived sovereign immunity with respect to improper customs duties, by statute.

This actually happens quite a bit, so there are well-established procedures for this. It's just never happened on this scale before.

AboutSource Built by g1lg1l

Hackerly is an independent reader for Hacker News, built on the public HN API. Not affiliated with Y Combinator.