Politics

‘The Invoice Remains Unpaid’: Pritzker Calls on Trump to Offer Tariff Relief to Illinois Families

Gov. JB Pritzker is demanding the Trump administration reimburse Illinois residents who were forced to pay higher prices caused by tariffs that were later struck down by the U.S. Supreme Court.

Pritzker in a letter to President Donald Trump on Thursday noted that while his administration has returned nearly half of the $166 billion it collected through the tariffs, those refunds have gone to the “biggest and wealthiest corporations” instead of Illinois residents, who have received nothing.

“There is no portal to request a refund for a mother in Rockford buying groceries for her children,” Pritzker wrote. “There is no trade attorney representing a retiree in Carbondale paying off their mortgage. There is no check coming in for the farmer in Champaign who had to pay more for his equipment.”

Apple received an estimated $2.2 billion tariff refund last quarter, according to CNN. Pritzker’s office said Amazon received $600 million in one quarter while Nike has received nearly $1 billion after the Supreme Court struck down the president’s most sweeping levies earlier this year.

American consumers who paid higher prices as a result of those tariffs are getting almost nothing back.

The levies cost households an estimated $1,000 on average last year, according to the Tax Foundation. Before the Supreme Court weighed in, the Trump administration had floated the idea of $2,000 tariff rebate checks to redistribute some of the revenue the government had collected. Those, however, never materialized.

The tariff refund system is structured so that only the parties who directly paid the tariffs — or the customs brokers acting on their behalf — can file for a refund. That means that if you bought, for example, a pair of Nike sneakers that became more expensive as the company passed along some of its increased tariff costs, you have no legal way to get that money back.

Pritzker in his letter called on Trump to direct the U.S. Treasury to enact direct payments of $1,700 per family to Illinois households — totaling more than $8.6 billion — and express his support for the Tariff Relief for Consumers Act, which the governor said would require corporations receiving substantial refunds to pass that relief on to consumers on household essentials.

“The invoice remains unpaid,” Pritzker said. “Illinois families are still waiting.”

CNN contributed to this report.

---