The government is about to start handing out tariff refunds on April 20th. Billions flowing back to the companies that “passed the costs on to consumers” — their words, not mine. So naturally those savings are coming back to us too, right? Of course not. CNBC surveyed a bunch of CFOs and not a single one plans to share the refund money with customers. Zero. Every penny stays at the top.
This is the grift working exactly as designed. Trump slaps tariffs on everything, prices go up, companies jack their margins and blame “the tariffs,” and when the refunds come they pocket that too and blame “market conditions.” You paid more going in and you’ll pay more coming out. The tariff was never a tax on China — it was a tax on you, laundered through corporate balance sheets. The refund is a corporate bonus you also funded.
If you’re keeping score: the consumer ate the price hike, won’t see the refund, and somehow this is being sold as economic nationalism. The only nation being built here is a nation of quarterly earnings beats.