Ryan Knudson

Cry me a river, basically.

I'm going to issue an order.

Judge Eaton was so unpersuaded by the government's arguments that he did something pretty bold.

He issued a ruling straight from the bench.

When Judge Eaton made that order from the bench, which was basically, okay, just go do it, was that a surprise?

But despite Judge Eaton's speedy ruling, it still might take a long time for companies to get their money back.

That's next.

The government actually has a system for issuing tariff refunds.

But after Judge Eaton's ruling, the government said it's not quite set up for a refund as massive as the $166 billion collected in Trump's tariffs.

So is there a picture now emerging for how this refund process might actually play out?

What do companies think about that?

I mean, right, because shouldn't the government have a record of how much money it's collected and who has paid them that money?

Making things even gnarlier for companies is that now some of their customers are suing them and saying that if you're going to get a refund, you'd better give some of that money to us.

And there's even more litigation on the way.

First, the Trump administration might appeal Judge Eaton's order on refunds.

What an absolute mess.

Is there a risk that the process is so onerous that businesses just don't do it?

Yeah, for these companies, they might be happy that there's a ruling saying that the tariffs are illegal and that they are supposed to get their money back.

But

It doesn't really wipe away the pain that the businesses went through over the past year.