The US government has already paid back tens of billions of dollars in tariffs it collected before the supreme court ruled them illegal, according to budget figures released on Monday.

Tariffs – taxes on imported goods – have been a key part of president Donald Trump’s game economic plan since he took office again last year.

But in February, the supreme court shut down a big chunk of the extra tariffs Trump ordered, forcing the government to return money to the companies that had paid them.

According to the budget data, the US has paid out $81bn in tariff refunds so far this fiscal year, which started in October 2025, compared to just $5bn during the same stretch last year.

A Treasury department official told reporters that the spike is almost entirely because of the supreme court decision, with most of the refunds happening in May and June.

Trump had pitched the tariffs as a catch-all fix for the economy – bringing factories back to America, getting better trade deals and closing the deficit in the federal budget.

But the deficit, which had actually gotten a little smaller last year thanks to the tariff income, is now growing again.

It hit $1.367tn in the first nine months of the fiscal year, up 2%.

The US also spent over $1tn just on paying interest on its debt, up 14%, and military spending climbed 5% because of the war in the Middle East.

The administration’s current temporary 10% global tariff is due to expire on 24 July but the White House is preparing new duties over what it sees as lax enforcement of anti-forced labor laws and excess industrial capacity.

With Agence France-Presse and Reuters

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