US media: Trump administration accelerates strategy development to preserve tariff revenue

Odaily Planet Daily reports that, according to Politico, multiple departments within the Trump administration are rushing to develop legal strategies to retain billions of dollars in tariff revenue even if the Supreme Court rules that the relevant tariffs were “illegally collected.” Several people familiar with the internal discussions said that initial ideas include using policy measures to discourage companies from applying for refunds, preventing the government from actually issuing refunds, or otherwise retaining at least part of the tariff revenue. One proposal is to claim that the tariffs collected over the past year are legitimate income under a new tariff framework that the government is preparing to implement based on different legal authorities. Another plan would allow companies to receive priority processing during the expected lengthy refund queue, provided they agree to waive part of their refund amounts.