Newsom Demands Tariff Refunds After Court Curbs Trump Power

Alicia Clanton

Sat, February 21, 2026 at 4:00 AM GMT+9 2 min read

(Bloomberg) – California Governor Gavin Newsom urged President Donald Trump to return billions of dollars collected under sweeping US tariffs after the Supreme Court ruled that the global duties were imposed illegally.

In a 6-3 ruling on Friday, the court found that Trump exceeded his authority when using emergency powers to impose so-called “reciprocal” tariffs without approval from Congress. The ruling said federal law doesn’t give the president unilateral power to impose such wide-ranging tariffs.

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“Time to pay the piper, Donald,” Newsom said in a statement. “These tariffs were nothing more than an illegal cash grab that drove up prices and hurt working families, so you could wreck longstanding alliances and extort them.”

Newsom, a Democrat seen as a potential 2028 presidential candidate who has elevated his national profile through frequent confrontations with Trump, said families and businesses should be repaid with interest.

California was among the states that sued over the tariffs. Newsom has frequently challenged Trump administration policies in court and the state’s Attorney General Rob Bonta says he’s filed lawsuits on a near-weekly basis over disputes ranging from the cancellation of federal funding to immigration policy.

In response to Friday’s ruling, Trump at a briefing at the White House said he would sign an order imposing a 10% global tariff and pledged a raft of investigations that could allow him to enact more import taxes.

Newsom has claimed that Trump’s tariffs have hurt his state disproportionately given California’s outsized role in the US economy and trade. The state accounts for roughly 14% of the nation’s gross domestic product and would be considered one of the largest economies in the world if it were a standalone country.

The Supreme Court didn’t address how to handle refund claims, leaving lower courts to decide how the issue should be sorted out. If fully allowed, those claims could total as much as $170 billion, representing more than half of the tariff revenue collected.

When asked whether the tariffs should be refunded as Newsom has urged, New York Governor Kathy Hochul agreed. The Trump administration “owes residents money back in their pockets,” Hochul said.

–With assistance from Skylar Woodhouse.

(Updates with comment from Hochul in final paragraph.)

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