Container ship at the Port of Los Angeles on May 9, 2025 in San Pedro, California.
Gina Ferazzi | Los Angeles Times | Getty Images
Despite that of Friday Supreme Court decision who headed the president that of Donald Trump “reciprocal” tariffs are illegal, US importers still pay duties on goods entering the country.
U.S. Customs and Border Protection (CBP) has not yet updated its Cargo System Management Service to remove duties imposed by Trump under the International Emergency Economic Powers Act (IEEPA). Under U.S. trade policy, Customs must post updates on tariff changes and other trade-related information on their Freight Systems Courier Service.
On Friday, customs posted a newsletter on the decision saying: “[T]CBP is working with other government agencies to fully consider the implications of the SCOTUS decision. CBP will provide additional information and technical guidance to Automated Commercial Environment (ACE) filers as it becomes available.
CNBC has been told by Customs that this is the last update for importers at this time.
THE Automated paperless business environment is the customs system used to process imports and exports. A decree signed by Trump in March tasked CBP with modernizing its manual payment system.
“Customs has not removed the requirement to declare IEEPA tariff codes in order to obtain release of goods. So, to keep goods moving, IEEPA tariffs are still declared upon entry,” explained Lori Mullins, director of operations at Rogers & Brown Custom Brokers. “We are still waiting for a CSMS message confirming a change to now accept entries without these tariffs, but as of yet this change has not been made and Customs still requires them.”
About 211,000 containers of cargo, worth some $8.2 billion, arrived at U.S. ports between Friday and Sunday, according to Vizion’s trading platform Tradeview.
Mullins said importers were given 10 days to pay customs duties.
“No money is actually transferred until day 10, so custom entry summaries can be changed up to 9 days after cargo release, before payment is due on day 10. After that, you will need to post the payment and then file a post-summary correction for a refund.”
The question, customs brokers and commercial lawyers say, is how CBP will handle entries for release of goods over the past 10 days that will be paid next week.
“It will likely take some time for Customs to reconfigure its system to reflect the court’s decision,” said Michael Lowell, partner and chair of the Global Regulatory Enforcement Group at law firm Reed Smith. “So this weekend, importers file documents with the tariff, then when customs updates their system, the importer files a post-summary correction (before payment), removing the tariff. The goods then arrive this weekend without the tariff.”
The enormity of the corrections will slow the process, however, Lowell warned.
“Fixes usually take a few weeks, up to 30 days,” he said. “However, we may see some delays given the scale of the problem this weekend.”
This is just one layer of uncertainty weighing on importers. The questions surrounding refundson which the Supreme Court has not ruled, will be decided by the American Court of International Trade (CIT).
“This is the first time a tariff has been declared unconstitutional with this amount of money at stake,” said Ben Bidwell, senior director of customs at CH Robinson. “So there are still a lot of questions about whether the International Trade Court will take action that opens the door to widespread refunds, whether some companies will be able to get refunds, or whether refunds are even on the table.”
In a Q&A session with customers on the Supreme Court ruling, shipping and fulfillment services giant Kuehne + Nagel urged its customers to have all customs documents in order when the CIT rules on refunds.
“The CIT is supposed to manage all reimbursement mechanisms, but no timeline exists; high volumes of claims could create delays of several years,” Kuehne + Nagel said.
CIT has not yet responded to CNBC’s request for comment.
