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U
S Customs and Border Protection (CBP) announced
its tariff refund portal and 4 recently importers
should act fast. The window is narrow, the process is complex and the clock is ticking. On 20th April 2026, US Customs and Border
Protection (CBP) opened the door for more than 330,000 importers to claim back duties collected under the International Emergency Economic Powers Act (IEEPA), which the Supreme Court ruled invalid on 20th February 2026. Over US$166 billion is potentially on the table. Whether importers can actually get to it, though, is another question entirely.
An unprecedented measure Airforwarders Association Executive Director Brandon Fried has spent decades watching trade policy and says he has never seen anything like this. “This would be a first. I can’t recall any wholesale, writ large refund measure that has been ordered by the courts or that an administration has had to implement, especially customs.” And he is not wrong. Donald Trump is the first US president to
use the IEEPA to impose tariffs; the Emergency Economic Powers Act has never been deployed as a tariff mechanism before. The Supreme Court’s 6-3 ruling put that debate to rest: IEEPA does not authorise the president to impose tariffs. This created an entirely new administrative challenge with no established playbook, no precedent and no clear timetable. The CBP’s new Consolidated Administration and Processing
of Entries (CAPE) platform sits inside its existing Automated Commercial Environment (ACE) portal. Importers submit a CAPE Declaration, a file listing entry numbers, and CBP processes refunds in batches. Straightforward enough on paper, right? Well, in practice it requires an active ACE account, Automated Clearing House (ACH) bank enrollment and clean entry data. Miss any of it and CBP holds the refund indefinitely.
A sliver of opportunity Phase one of CAPE covers roughly 63 percent of IEEPA-affected entries, according to Covington and Burling. Entries tied up in disputes, drawback claims or other duty proceedings are excluded.
So are Section 122, Section 232 and Section 301 tariffs. If the duties were not collected specifically under IEEPA, they are not covered. The legal picture gets murkier from here. The government has until
approximately 7th June 2026 to appeal to the Federal Circuit, and practitioners and trade lawyers expect the Trump administration to do so. The argument is expected to lean on the Supreme Court’s 2025 ruling in Trump v. CASA, which narrowed nationwide injunctions, essentially declarind the Court of International Trade (CIT) cannot extend relief to importers who never filed suit. Keeping to the theme, that question is also unresolved. Meanwhile, Treasury Secretary Scott Bessent has made it clear
that Section 301 investigations launched against 60 economies on 12th March 2026 could result in tariffs returning to previous levels by July. “The tariffs could be back in place at the previous level by the beginning of July.” For airfreight operators and their shipper clients, that is the sharpest practical point: the refund window could close before most have even opened it.
Who gets the money? Even importers who make it through CAPE face another obstacle. There is no legal requirement to pass refunds downstream to customers. Norton Rose Fulbright’s Stefan Reisinger put the risk bluntly: “If companies get refunds, what are the chances they’re going to get sued either by their direct or indirect customers?” For the airfreight community, this question lands differently than
it does for general importers. US carriers and forwarders spent 2025 passing elevated tariff-driven costs downstream through fuel surcharges, and rate increases. If importers now receive refunds on duties that were absorbed across the supply chain, the question of who actually gets paid back is not just legal. It’s commercial and also likely to remain unresolved. Forwarders should be calling their clients now. Some importers with
IEEPA-affected entries might not know the portal exists, or whether they qualify. They also might not know that a government appeal before 7th June 2026 could freeze refunds entirely. Flagging the window and pointing clients toward a customs broker or trade lawyer is not just going above and beyond, it’s good business.
TARIFF REWIND
The weekly newspaper for air cargo professionals No. 1,377 04 May 2026
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