President Donald Trump suggested last month that he would look into companies that did not seek tax refunds after the Supreme Court struck down his broad global duties.
At first, some big firms like it Amazon they appeared to be holding off on asking for a refund out of concern that they would upset the president of the talks and end up meeting, CNBC reported earlier this year. But now some of the biggest US companies are showing up Walmart to an apple they confirmed that they wanted what they were owed – regardless of the consequences.
The Home Depot, General Motors, John Deere, FedEx again Costco are among other large American companies that have said they are trying to get their money back. The moves may not represent a sea change in how companies are handling their relationship with Trump. Still, they show key examples of when they are willing to publicly part ways with the president, after he told CNBC he would “remember” if the companies decide not to seek refunds.
There is a strong business incentive to apply – and, for many, a fiduciary responsibility. Large companies have the opportunity to recover billions of dollars and increase returns to shareholders.
More than $35 billion in refunds have already been processed and are on their way to business bank accounts, US Customs and Border Protection said in a court filing earlier this month. The government owes about $166 billion in total restitution.
‘I’ll miss them’
When Trump appeared on “Squawk Box” last month, CNBC’s Andrew Ross Sorkin said that at the time, Apple was among the companies that were involved in filing for refunds out of apparent concern that it would upset the president. In response, Trump said “It’s fine if they don’t.”
“Actually, if they don’t do that, they must not know well,” he said. “I am very honored by what you just said.”
“If they don’t do that, I’m going to miss them,” Trump said.
The comments moved Washington, where lobbyists and business groups said they had initially given some importers time to apply for the money they were entitled to. The companies have been trying to determine what the president meant by his speech, and how the management can take revenge on themselves by doing this plan.
But the threat hasn’t stopped big US companies from trying to reverse what they paid in taxes. Take U.S. retailer Walmart, which drew Trump’s ire last year when it said it might have to raise prices because of jobs, prompting Trump to tell the grocer to “eat prices” and warn that he “will be watching.”
In an interview with CNBC on Thursday, Walmart chief financial officer John David Rainey confirmed that the company filed for a refund of the money it paid for the so-called IEEPA tariffs, but he doesn’t expect a big windfall if it is refunded.
“We’ve had the opportunity to participate in those returns. For us, it’s a small part of our overall business,” Rainey said when discussing the company’s first fiscal quarter results. “To be eligible for those rebates, you need to be the importer of record, and for us, where we’re the importer of record, it’s about half of 1% of our US sales.”
In its latest fiscal year of 2026, Walmart US saw $483 billion in net sales, so a 1% share would account for $2.42 billion. While that figure is larger than most companies’ annual revenue, Rainey said it’s not a big deal for a business that saw more than $713 billion in revenue last fiscal year.
Still, “every little thing counts,” he said.
“We will prioritize those returns if and when we find that we have invested in the prices for our customers,” he said. “We recognize that when we look at where we are right now with both the pressure on the consumer and the maintenance of share gains that we’ve seen, the best ROI for that dollar is investing in our customer value.”
Walmart is among the companies that say they may try to use the money to benefit customers, even in indirect ways. Sending refunds to keep prices low for consumers has become a theme among companies filing their claims.
“What we’ve heard above all about consumption is, this will help us avoid raising prices as quickly as we thought we would have to,” said Neil Bradley, chief policy officer of the US Chamber of Commerce. “That’s a hard thing to telegraph, but it’s true.”
Walmart confirmed it is seeking the money back Thursday after Target CFO Jim Lee said Wednesday the company is “working through the process” of getting a refund. Home Depot’s chief financial officer, Richard McPhail, also said Tuesday that the retailer has applied and “received an insignificant amount so far.”
“We thought that would give a big discount to those [tariff] costs,” he told analysts.
Some companies have sought to find ways to use any refunds in ways that will please the White House and their customers, said one representative of an influential business group. For example, Apple has said since Trump’s comments that it is filing for a tax refund.
It plans to reinvest any money back into “US innovation and advanced manufacturing,” a top priority for Trump, Apple CEO Tim Cook said on a call with analysts last month.
Meanwhile, other big companies have been silent on whether they will try to recover their tax payments.
Amazon, which was sued in a class-action lawsuit last week over its decision not to offer refunds, did not respond to requests for comment on whether the refund would be effective.
Some are not ready to accept their refund plans in any way. On Wednesday, Lowe’s CEO Marvin Ellison would not say whether the retailer is making a bid.
“We’re just monitoring the situation,” said Ellison. “We’ve never said publicly whether we filed or not, but what we’ve done is pay close attention to the situation, we understand that when tax refunds go out, they go out to everybody, so right now we’re trying to figure out if and when those refunds happen.”
