Sarah Gonzalez

Like hedge funds are buying the potential refund for 40% of what it will total if it happens.

That's still a discount of 60 percent because of what a mess it's going to be to try to get this refund and how long it will take.

That's what the hedge funds are buying.

All that complexity, the uncertainty, the headache for the potential payoff.

Brett Kavanaugh summed it up as mess.

But there are other laws that give the president the power to create tariffs.

Kathleen Clausen, our trade law professor, ran through a whole list of them with us last time she was on the show.

For instance, right now we have a bunch of specific tariffs on some Chinese machinery and minerals and also footwear.

Those tariffs were created under the Section 301 law.

Those tariffs are still in place.

And the process itself takes a while.

There's got to be a report, just a lot of administrative work.

The appeal of creating tariffs using IEPA was that the process would be much faster.

Or is there?

At this press conference on Friday, Trump announced a new across the board 10 percent tariff under a different law with a different three digit number.

She says this is another one of those economic laws written during the Cold War.

And unlike some of the other three-digit laws, Kathleen says Section 122, in theory, lets the president create a lot of tariffs really fast.

Like, what if after the 150 days are up, the president just does it again, makes another 10% tariff that lasts another 150 days?

Kathleen says, yeah, there's going to be lawsuits to come over the new 10% tariff.

This episode was produced by Sam, Yellow Horse Kessler, and Willa Rubin.