February 23-27, 2026 —
FedEx Sues Administration for Tariff Refunds; V.O.S. Files Motion for Preliminary Injunction
FedEx sued the Trump administration Monday, seeking a “full refund” of all tariffs it paid the government under the overturned International Emergency Economic Powers Act.
“Accordingly … Plaintiffs seek for themselves a full refund from Defendants of all IEEPA duties Plaintiffs have paid to the United States,” lawyers for FedEx wrote in the lawsuit, lodged at the Customs and Border Protection Agency in the U.S. Court of International Trade (CIT).
FedEx says that when tariffs were in effect under the IEEPA law, it imported goods from countries subject to the duties. It says it “paid IEEPA duties to the United States and thus [has] suffered injury caused by those orders.”
Unrelated to the FedEx suit, V.O.S. filed a motion for a preliminary injunction seeking the CIT to order the refunds.
USTR Greer Does Not See an Escalation in Tariffs
According to a Politico story, U.S. Trade Representative Jamieson Greer said he did not expect President Donald Trump to raise tariffs on countries that have already struck trade deals with the United States, even though the U.S. plans to launch a series of new trade investigations in the aftermath of a Supreme Court ruling that struck down many of Trump’s tariffs.
“I guess there’s a world where that could happen, but I think that would really only happen if the countries reneged on their deals or doubled down on these unfair trade practices,” Greer said in an interview Wednesday morning with Fox Business Network host Maria Bartiromo.
Instead, the new investigations are intended to provide “the enforcement mechanism to make sure that countries comply with their deals,” Greer said.
There is concern by some that Trump could use Section 338 of the 1930 Tariff Act, to impose tariffs of up to 50 percent. The Administration has hinted that 338 would only be used in “really specific” instances where another country discriminates against U.S. companies.
In that same Fox interview, Greer indicated that Section 301 and 232 would be the main tools the administration uses to enforce the trade deals and the tariffs it has put in place. Greer said the administration does not intend to ramp up tariffs on China, which are currently in the range of 35 to 50 percent depending on the product.
USTR General Counsel Addresses the Legality of Future Tariffs
In a Washington International Trade Association (WITA) briefing, Jennifer Thornton, USTR General Counsel, said that while new Section 301 actions are meant to continue President Donald Trump’s trade stance, that doesn’t mean they will match the reciprocal tariff country rates.
“We have been looking very hard at all [Section 301 options] since the president’s second term began, but we don’t intend to guarantee any outcomes. We don’t know what the tariff rates will be at the end of those investigations. There are some investigations that might not result in any tariff rates at all, either because we feel that our trading partners are addressing our concerns in the context of our existing negotiations,” or because, as a result of the consultation that is required by the statute, trading partners convince the U.S. “that they’re willing to really work with us to remove the [trade] barriers that we’ve identified.”
Thornton, who spoke at the WITA international trade conference Feb. 24, was in dialogue with Business Roundtable President Kristen Silverberg. Silverberg followed up and asked if the tariffs levied by these new Section 301 investigations need to bring in as much revenue as the International Emergency Economic Powers Act tariffs did.
“No, we at USTR are not thinking about revenue at all,” Thornton said. “The goal is not revenue generation, but leverage. And we feel that many trading partners have stepped up to the table and already have taken great strides to address some of our longstanding concerns. The revenue landscape may be very different at the end of this program, but we are confident that the global trading system will ultimately be fairer.”
Thornton said that she expects new tariffs to be challenged in court but hopes they will survive long enough for USTR to complete a series of trade investigations to create a more durable foundation for the duties.
“To explain our position in the simplest term, the president believes a country must be able to finance its consumption,” she said. “In 2024, the United States maintained a current account deficit equal to 4 percent of our gross domestic product, almost double the current account deficit of approximately 2 percent that prevailed between 2013 and 2019.”
The U.S. in 2024, for the first time in more than 60 years, also had a deficit in its “balance on primary income,” which measures the flow of money the U.S. earns on overseas investment and labor relative to domestic investment and labor, Thornton said.
“Furthermore, the U.S. net international investment position was 89 percent of our GDP. That means that if all the obligations the United States and its nationals have incurred to foreigners were to become due today, and we could instantly deploy all the foreign assets the United States and its nationals hold, we would still have to make net payments equivalent to 89 percent of our annual economic output to fulfill those obligations,” she said.
Senate Democrats Unveil IEEPA Refund Legislation
Senate Democrats unveiled legislation that would force the Trump administration to issue refunds to individuals and entities hit hard by tariffs that were struck down last Friday by the Supreme Court.
The bill — spearheaded by Sens. Ron Wyden of Oregon, Ed Markey of Massachusetts and Jeanne Shaheen of New Hampshire with the support of Minority Leader Chuck Schumer and other senators — would require the administration to dole out reimbursements for tariffs that were previously imposed under the International Emergency Economic Powers Act and paid by importers.
The legislation also would require Customs and Border Protection to prioritize small businesses as it doles out refunds and gives a report to Congress every 30 days until those refunds are repaid fully.
House Democrats have also prepped a bill to compel tariff refunds.
Trump Spares EU and UK from Higher Tariff Rates for Now
President Donald Trump removal of his threat to raise new global tariffs to 15 percent, spared Britain and the European Union from higher rates. Tariffs on exports to the United States will, for now, remain at 10 percent under the White House’s new regime, which took effect on Tuesday morning.
Trump’s decision not to follow through on the threat means continuity for British businesses. U.K. exports already faced 10 percent duties, plus Most Favored Nation (MFN) rates, under Trump’s “Liberation Day” tariffs.
It also sees a similar level of tariffs applied to exports from the European Union as before. Products coming from the EU were previously hit with a 15 percent tariff, or the MFN rate, depending on which was higher.
The European Parliament froze ratification of the EU’s trade deal with the U.S. on Monday amid concerns that Trump’s latest tariff broadside breaches the terms of the transatlantic accord struck last summer.
Speaking with USTR Jamieson Greer over the weekend, U.K. trade chief Peter Kyle “underlined his concerns about further uncertainty for business” and reinforced “the need to honor the U.K.-U.S. deal” reached last May, a No. 10 spokesperson told reporters on Monday.
The deal lowered Trump’s sectoral tariffs on steel and aluminum, autos and aerospace. Trump’s new duties will apply to exports not covered by the Economic Prosperity Deal (EPD).
Taipei Reconsiders US-Taiwan Trade Deal
The U.S. Supreme Court’s move last week to overturn President Donald Trump’s liberation day tariffs — the catalyst for the trade deal — has Taiwan’s main opposition party urging the government of President Lai Ching-te to return to the negotiation table to try to get a better deal.
The court decision “completely overturned” the agreement’s legal basis and requires Lai to “report to the legislature immediately and consider reopening negotiations,” Fu Kun-chi, legislative caucus convenor for the KMT Party said Monday per the South China Morning Post. Taiwan People’s Party Chair Huang Kuo-chang has called for a “comprehensive review” of the deal.
That raises the risk of new trade frictions between the U.S. and the world’s largest producer of advanced semiconductors and could threaten a related investment pledge that the Trump administration has touted as “the largest semiconductor investment in American history.”
Senate Sanctions Bill with Tariffs Could See a Vote
A high-profile Russia sanctions bill stalled for months by the White House will get a vote this year, according to its bipartisan sponsors. But other options before Congress could provide faster results.
Senate Foreign Relations Committee ranking member Jeanne Shaheen wants Republicans to push ahead with bipartisan legislation already moving through Congress that would put the squeeze on Moscow now, instead of waiting for a comprehensive sanctions plan backed by President Donald Trump.
Sens. Lindsey Graham and Richard Blumenthal are co-sponsors of the measure, which is months in the works and would authorize 500 percent tariffs on goods from nations that purchase Russian oil, gas or uranium. The goal is to economically cripple these transactions as punishment for Russia’s continued aggression against Ukraine.
It would also add secondary sanctions that could freeze U.S. trade with major partners such as China, India and Brazil over their purchases of Russian energy.
The bill has more than 80 co-sponsors. But Senate Majority Leader John Thune hasn’t moved the measure because Trump has been reluctant to endorse the plan while he’s wooing Russian President Vladimir Putin to the peace table. Graham has said he believes Trump is on board with the plan.
Trump’s 2025 Tariffs’ Impact on U.S. Supply Chains was Significant
President Donald Trump’s historic tariffs, some of which the Supreme Court struck down Friday, remade trade in 2025 — and no country experienced as big a shift as China.
Thanks in large part to U.S. tariffs that at one point reached triple digits, the Asian manufacturing powerhouse’s share of the overall U.S. import market fell to 9 percent in 2025, compared to 13.4 percent in 2024, according to the Commerce Department’s trade report for December released Thursday.
That is China’s lowest market share since the early 2000s. Less than a decade ago, China accounted for one-fifth of annual U.S. imports.
U.S. imports from China fell to $308 billion in 2025, their lowest level since 2009 and a drop of more than 42 percent from the record high of $539 billion in 2018.
Factoring all the tariffs Trump announced last year, as well as the rollbacks he granted, Chinese goods faced an “effective” U.S. tariff rate of 30.9 percent in November, according to Olu Sonola, head of U.S. economic research at Fitch Ratings in New York, and his colleague Sarah Repucci. This included, but was not limited to, Trump’s “reciprocal” tariffs that the Supreme Court struck down.
Comparatively, the effective tariff rate was 19.7 percent for India, 12.7 percent for Vietnam, 8.1 percent for the European Union, 4.2 percent for Mexico, 3.7 percent for Canada and 3.5 percent for Taiwan, according to Fitch Ratings’ calculations.
“Basically what’s happening is as China is falling across the board, many Asian countries are increasing their share of U.S. imports,” Sonola told POLITICO, adding that Vietnam, Taiwan, Mexico and India were among the biggest beneficiaries.
Trump Administration Releases Maritime Action Plan Aimed at Resurrecting US Shipbuilding
The Trump administration on Friday released its plan to rebuild U.S. shipbuilding and other maritime businesses, paid for in part by port fees on cargo delivered to the United States on ships made in China – levies the U.S. and China agreed to pause for one year.
The plan would establish a “universal fee” on foreign-built commercial vessels, “to be assessed on the weight of the imported tonnage arriving on the vessel.” It didn’t specify an amount but said that a fee of 1¢ per kilogram would yield “roughly $66 billion” over 10 years and a 25¢ fee would yield $1.5 trillion, “which could be used for the Maritime Security Trust Fund.”
The plan also envisioned a “Land Port Maintenance Tax (Fee)” that would “directly” address the “diversion of cargo” from U.S. ports to avoid the Harbor Maintenance Tax. This fee appears to be a new form of the service fee proposed in last year’s executive order to address the same issue. The new fee would be “equivalent to the existing Harbor Maintenance Tax,” and would be “a modest tax” of 0.125% of the value of the merchandise. The funds collected under the fee “will be deposited into the newly established Land Port Maintenance Trust Fund” to be used for land port infrastructure.
Additionally, the plan proposed a “United States Maritime Preference Requirement” that would require “high-volume exporting economies” to transport a “gradually increasing percentage” of their cargo on U.S. vessels but didn’t specify a mechanism to punish carriers who fail to do so.
ITC Announces Third Investigation into USMCA Auto Rules
The U.S. International Trade Commission on Thursday announced its third congressionally mandated investigation into the auto rules of origin included in the North American trade pact inked during President Donald Trump’s first term.
The independent commission will examine the impact of the U.S.-Mexico-Canada Agreement’s rules of origin on economic growth and U.S. competitiveness, including effects on gross domestic product, exports, imports, production and investment, according to details released by USITC, and it will assess wages and employment for American autoworkers.
The study is part of a series of five reports required under legislation implementing the USMCA, a revised version of the North American Free Trade Agreement.
USITC must deliver the report to the president and the Senate Finance and House Ways and Means committees by July 1, 2027, the agency said in a statement.
LA Port Sees Decrease in Goods Movement in 2026
The Port of Los Angeles is likely to see decreased goods movement in 2026 as the Trump administration’s tariff policy continues to impact global markets, its executive director said Tuesday.
Port of Los Angeles Executive Director Gene Seroka said during a media briefing that the nation’s busiest port handled 421,000 imported containers in January, a 13 percent decline compared to the same period last year. He pinned the decrease on an early cargo surge in 2025, as businesses rushed to secure inventory ahead of Trump taking office and instituting new tariffs.
The port also handled 104,000 outbound containers, an 8 percent year-over-year drop and the lowest monthly output in almost three years.
CBP Launches New E-Allegations Website
U.S. Customs and Border Protection is pleased to announce the launch of the updated e-Allegations website. The site, located at e-Allegations Program | U.S. Customs and Border Protection, provides guidance for submitting anonymous reports of suspected trade violations.
For questions on how to file an e-Allegation, to inquire about the status of an e-Allegation, or to suggest improvements to this website or the e-Allegations submission form, please email: [email protected].