At least one blue state governor hasn’t forgotten about the billions of dollars in tariff refunds the Trump administration owes the American people.
Illinois Gov. JB Pritzker, 61, clapped back after President Donald Trump bragged that he would raise tariffs “very soon”—even after his market-crashing levies were declared illegal by the Supreme Court.
“We’re selling more cars now. A lot of it has to do with tariffs,” Trump, 79, said at a Las Vegas event on Thursday night to promote his “no tax on tips” policy.
“You pay no tariffs if you come here,” the president went on. “If you don’t come here, you pay a lot of tariffs, and we’re raising those tariffs very soon. Not on you, it’s on people from the outside that don’t build their plants here.”
But Pritzker reminded Trump there’s a pending matter that Americans have been waiting on him to resolve.
“Meanwhile, you still owe Illinoisans $8,679,261,600 from your last round of illegal tariffs,” he wrote in an X post on Friday.
“Cut the check, @realdonaldtrump.”
When reached for comment, the White House attacked Pritzker.
“The immense weight of Illinois’s sky-high taxes and regulations is matched only by JB Pritzker’s own personal bloat. If this slob really cared about delivering economic relief for Illinois, he’d start with his own state government instead of chasing another stupid headline,” White House spokesperson Kush Desai said.
Trump unveiled a flurry of steep tariffs at a “Liberation Day” event at the White House in April last year, quickly sending markets spiraling.
In February, however, the Supreme Court struck down those tariffs in a 6-3 ruling, finding that Trump exceeded the powers given to him by Congress under a 1977 law.
Trump used the International Emergency Economic Powers Act to justify his tariffs. The law gives the president the authority to exercise various economic powers “to deal with any unusual and extraordinary threat” to national security.
“We claim no special competence in matters of economics or foreign affairs. We claim only, as we must, the limited role assigned to us by Article III of the Constitution. Fulfilling that role, we hold that IEEPA does not authorize the President to impose tariffs,” Supreme Court Chief Justice John Roberts wrote.
The Trump administration is set to launch a tariff refund portal next week to comply with the high court’s order, according to Customs and Border Protection.
