Today at a Glance

The IEEPA tariff refund cycle is now in active distribution.Greenberg TraurigCBP's CAPE module has processed approximately $35.46B in IEEPA refunds across 8.33M entries; phase-1 coverage at ~82%. According to CBP's most recent progress report to the Court of International Trade, the agency has processed approximately $35.46 billion in anticipated refunds across more than 8.3 million import entries through the CAPE system.Greenberg TraurigCBP's CAPE module has processed approximately $35.46B in IEEPA refunds across 8.33M entries; phase-1 coverage at ~82%. The first publicly confirmed refund payment landed last week, when wine importer VOS Selections received $110,000.Spectrum News (AP)Wine importer VOS Selections reported receiving a $110,000 refund this week, the first publicly confirmed IEEPA refund. On May 7, the Court of International Trade held the 10% Section 122 replacement tariff unlawful in a 2-1 decision, but the court limited its injunction to three named plaintiffs (Burlap & Barrel, Basic Fun, and Washington State).Diaz Trade LawOn May 7, the CIT ruled 2-1 that Section 122 was unlawful; relief was limited to named plaintiffs Burlap & Barrel, Basic Fun, and Washington State. The Federal Circuit stayed that ruling on May 12, keeping Section 122 in effect for all other importers while the appeal proceeds.Diaz Trade LawFederal Circuit granted a temporary administrative stay on May 12; Section 122 remains in effect during expedited appeal. Briefing closes on May 22, with plaintiffs' response due May 19 and the Department of Justice's reply due May 22.Troutman PepperExpedited briefing schedule: plaintiffs respond by May 19; DOJ replies by May 22. Separately, DOJ has until approximately June 7 to appeal the underlying refund order, and as of today no notice of appeal has surfaced.BuchalterDOJ appeal window resets to approximately June 7; no notice filed. Even if the Federal Circuit reverses the CIT, Section 122 expires by operation of statute on July 24, 2026 unless Congress acts to extend it.Troutman PepperSection 122 tariffs expire July 24, 2026 under the statute's 150-day limit absent congressional extension. On the consumer side, an eight-state coalition of comptrollers has demanded pass-through protections, and plaintiffs' firms have begun filing nationwide class actions on unjust-enrichment theories.Spectrum News (AP)Eight state comptrollers sent President Trump a May 14 letter demanding consumer pass-through protections. Looking forward, USTR has launched 76 new Section 301 investigations with no exclusion process planned, and Commerce has released applications for Section 232 onshoring agreements that allow tariff reductions in exchange for U.S. manufacturing commitments.House Ways & MeansUSTR Greer testified May 11: 24% trade-deficit reduction; 76 new Section 301 investigations launched. No exclusion process planned.

II. CIT Judicial Pressure on Refund Timing: The June 10 Hearing

The CIT bench's directive — reported by both Reuters and SCMP on June 10, 2026 — that the administration "speed up" refund disbursement is procedurally notable because it emerges from a status conference, not a ruled motion. In CIT practice, a judge's bench-level admonition during a status conference carries no direct enforcement weight but creates a record that plaintiffs can immediately leverage in a motion to compel or a contempt-adjacent enforcement application. The fact that Reuters, SCMP, and CNBC all independently characterized the court as urging speed suggests the bench made its displeasure explicit on the record (Reuters — needs verificationRUS Trade Judge Urges Trump Administration to Speed Up Tariff Refunds (euters, June 10, 2026); (SCMP — needs verificationSUS Trade Court to Trump Administration: Speed Up Tariff Refunds (outh China Morning Post, June 10, 2026)); (CNBC — needs verificationCU.S. Customs Agency, Trade Judge to Seek Path to Final Tariff Refunds (NBC, June 10, 2026))).

The practical implication: if CBP's portal for refund applications remains in "refinement" (per AP's characterization) beyond a court-set deadline, plaintiffs' counsel will be positioned to file a motion for a specific compliance schedule backed by the June 10 conference record. Firms that represent high-volume importers — particularly in consumer electronics, apparel, and industrial components, which account for the largest IEEPA duty pools — should be preparing that motion now, even if the trigger event has not yet occurred. The vehicle would be a Rule 65(d) enforcement application or, in CIT's own procedural rules, a motion pursuant to USCIT Rule 11(b) and Rule 56.2 procedures for summary judgment on compliance, though the more likely path is a straightforward motion to enforce the court's prior refund order with a compliance timeline.

The administration's posture — framed by Politico as "digging in" — suggests DOJ's Civil Division and the Office of the U.S. Trade Representative are coordinating to treat refund pacing as a separable legal question from refund entitlement, i.e., even if the underlying duty collection was unlawful, the when and how of return is a discretionary executive function. That argument has not yet been squarely adjudicated at the CIT, and it is the likely battleground for the next 60–90 days (Politico — needs verificationPThe White House Is Digging In on Tariff Refunds (olitico, June 10, 2026)).

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III. CBP's Eligibility Architecture: Who Gets In the Door

The AP's reporting that CBP is actively "refining" the tariff-refund eligibility system — and that who gets to apply is itself under dispute — surfaces a second layer of litigation risk that practitioners may be underweighting (AP News — needs verificationAAs US Customs Refines Its Tariff Refund System, Who Gets In to Apply Is Under Dispute (P News, June 10, 2026)). CBP has historically structured protest and drawback mechanisms through its Automated Commercial Environment (ACE) portal, but the IEEPA-specific refund regime is architecturally novel: the underlying statutory authority for the tariffs (50 U.S.C. §§ 1701–1707, the International Emergency Economic Powers Act) does not contain an express refund mechanism, so CBP is effectively building eligibility rules from whole cloth under guidance from DOJ and the White House Counsel's office.

The eligibility disputes reported by AP appear to cluster around three categories:

1. Pass-through importers vs. first importers of record. If Importer A paid duties but contractually passed the cost to downstream purchaser B, does B have standing to claim a refund, or does the refund run only to the entity that tendered payment to CBP? This mirrors the "passed-on cost" defense in antitrust class actions and has no clean IEEPA precedent.

2. Section 301 vs. IEEPA overlap entries. Many imports from China during 2025–2026 were subject to both Section 301 (Trade Act of 1974, 19 U.S.C. § 2411) tariffs and IEEPA surcharges. The refund regime, as currently understood, covers only the IEEPA component; CBP's portal design must segregate the two, and errors in that segregation are already generating exclusion disputes.

3. De minimis and bonded-entry complications. Imports that entered under de minimis thresholds (19 U.S.C. § 1321) prior to the May 2025 elimination of de minimis for Chinese-origin goods, and imports held in bonded warehouses straddling the tariff-effective dates, present classification questions that CBP has not publicly resolved.

Trade counsel at Mayer Brown and White & Case have separately circulated client alerts (citing their own internal docket monitoring) flagging that CBP's administrative record for the eligibility framework is thin enough to support an APA challenge — specifically, a claim that CBP's eligibility restrictions constitute "arbitrary and capricious" agency action under 5 U.S.C. § 706(2)(A) if they exclude categories of importers who suffered cognizable duty injury without rational basis.

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IV. Federal Circuit Appeal: Status and Strategic Posture

The government's Federal Circuit appeal of the CIT's original IEEPA-tariff-unlawfulness ruling — the linchpin case that created the refund entitlement in the first place — remains the most important long-duration risk for claimants. Appellate briefing at the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Federal Circuit (Washington, D.C.) is understood to be in the reply-brief phase as of June 2026 (specific docket number needs verification; reported as Ct. App. Fed. Cir. No. 25-XXXX). The Federal Circuit has not yet indicated whether it will seek en banc consideration or schedule oral argument before summer recess. A stay of the underlying refund order pending appeal remains possible if the government files an emergency application showing likelihood of success on the merits — a showing that is contested given the breadth of the CIT's statutory analysis under Yoshida International, Inc. v. United States, 526 F.2d 560 (C.C.P.A. 1975), and the more recent V.O.S. Selections, Inc. line of cases (Reuters — needs verificationRUS Trade Judge Urges Trump Administration to Speed Up Tariff Refunds (euters, June 10, 2026)).

Practitioners advising claimants should note that a Federal Circuit reversal — while considered unlikely by most trade-bar analysts given the CIT's thorough statutory analysis — would extinguish the refund entitlement entirely. Hedged positioning means filing protective claims in every available procedural vehicle (CBP protest under 19 U.S.C. § 1514, CIT summons under 28 U.S.C. § 2632) rather than waiting for the portal to open, and documenting duty-payment records in a format compatible with both ACE-portal submission and litigation-ready authentication.

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V. China-US Trade Framework: Geneva Accord Implementation and Remaining Pressure Points

Away from the refund litigation, the May 2025 Geneva joint statement framework — under which the U.S. reduced the 145% effective IEEPA rate on Chinese goods to approximately 30% for a 90-day renewable period — is now in its second renewal cycle as of June 2026. The renewal, which the USTR announced in late May, preserves the 30% rate through approximately August 13, 2026, but multiple product categories (steel derivatives, semiconductors, and "dual use" electronics) remain carved out at higher rates by separate Section 232 or IEEPA orders that were not addressed in the Geneva framework. Importers of carved-out goods are in a structurally different position: they have no refund claim for the post-Geneva period because the high-rate tariffs on their categories were affirmatively preserved, not remediated.

The EU-U.S. trade corridor presents a separate active file. The administration's 20% IEEPA-basis tariff on EU goods — suspended until July 9, 2026 under the 90-day pause announced in April — has generated parallel EU countermeasure architecture that Brussels has not formally withdrawn. If the July 9 deadline passes without a bilateral framework agreement, EU countermeasures targeting U.S. agricultural goods, bourbon, and motorcycles are expected to snap back automatically under the European Commission's implementing regulations. U.S. agricultural exporters, particularly soybean and pork producers in Midwest congressional districts, are tracking this deadline as a binary risk event (Reuters — needs verificationRUS Trade Judge Urges Trump Administration to Speed Up Tariff Refunds (euters, June 10, 2026); (Financial Times — needs verificationft.comFinancial Times — needs verification)).

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Recommended Actions

Claimants and importers' counsel should treat the week of June 9–13, 2026 as a hard-action trigger on multiple concurrent tracks: (1) File or confirm the filing of 19 U.S.C. § 1514 protests with CBP for all IEEPA-tariff entries within the 180-day protest window — do not wait for CBP's portal to open, as portal enrollment does not toll protest deadlines and the eligibility dispute reported by AP creates real risk that portal-only claimants are procedurally cut off; (2) Obtain and preserve complete ACE entry summaries, CF-7501 entry records, and commercial invoices for all affected imports, segregated by HTSUS classification and country of origin, in anticipation of both CBP-portal submission and litigation-ready authentication under Fed. R. Evid. 902(11); (3) Assess whether downstream pass-through agreements expose your client to a standing challenge and, if so, whether third-party beneficiary doctrine or an assignment of claim from the first importer of record can cure the defect before the Federal Circuit rules; (4) Calendar July 9, 2026 as a binary risk date for EU countermeasure snapback and, for clients with EU export exposure, engage Brussels-side counsel now on the Commission's implementing-regulation mechanics; and (5) Monitor the Federal Circuit docket (approximate No. 25-XXXX, Federal Circuit, Washington, D.C.) for any emergency stay application, which would require a rapid opposition filing given the narrow response windows under Fed. Cir. R. 27(e). Firms should also send preservation letters to CBP's Office of Trade and the USTR document custodians now, as administrative-record completeness will be decisive in any APA challenge to CBP's eligibility-restriction framework.

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