The $2,150 Necklace Trump Still Owes Me
The Supreme Court dubbed the tariffs illegal taxes. $129 billion in refunds got approved. Guess who isn't getting any.
Remember that $2K tariff dividend check that Donald Trump promised all of us? I’m curious what you bought with yours. I’ve had my eye on the David Yurman toggle chain necklace at 11mm. It’s $2,150, almost a wash. The problem is, I haven’t gotten my check.
Trump first promised us a $2,000 dividend from all the collected tariffs in Nov. 2025. In Feb. of this year, the Supreme Court killed the tariffs and called them illegal taxes. Five days later, Trump re-promised us our dividend checks at the State of the Union. I’m afraid I’ve spent mine. More than once.
Yes, it’s dumb math and I’ll own it. An excuse to spend. But is it so crazy to think I might be getting some money back? As of July 31, $129 billion in refunds had been approved. That is a shit-ton of money.
Already $100 billion of that has been paid in refunds to the companies that collected these tariffs from us.
So where is my refund? Retailers, for the most part, are keeping the money. Letting it fall straight to the bottom line.
Take Apple, which got $2.2 billion in refunds. That money accounted for 5% of the company’s Q2 per-share earnings.
Tariff refunds may be the biggest unearned profit in the stock market right now.
Tariff refunds may be the biggest unearned profit in the stock market right now.
Take a look at what retailers are receiving.
Walmart is expected to receive tariff refunds of more than $10.2 billion
Target: $2.2 billion expected
Nike expects to receive $986 million
Amazon: $640 million expected
On a 1:1 ratio, we paid the full cost of the tariff. Never mind the President’s insistence this would never happen. Analysis from the Federal Reserve shows a $1 tariff charged resulted in a $1 price increase for us.
Analysis from the Federal Reserve shows a $1 tariff charged resulted in a $1 price increase for us.
ABC News reported that Amazon acknowledged passing tariff costs to customers. Amazon “identified a limited set of circumstances where we can trace that we pass specific import charges on to customers.”
Some shoppers aren’t standing still, filing lawsuits to get back what is effectively our money. More than 80 cases have been filed against retailers and brands. There are proposed class action lawsuits against companies for “double dipping” claiming they’re collecting the tariffs from us and then again in the form of a refund from the government. These are the cases against Amazon, Lululemon and Fabletics. Suits against Nike, Nintendo and Costco and IKEA talk about how the companies easily collected the money but haven’t allowed a way for us to get our refunds.
There is one set of businesses that seems to be operating on principle. Shippers like UPS, FedEx and DHL are offering direct refunds to customers.
UPS said it collected $5 billion in tariffs
FedEx said it’s in the process of issuing $800 million in tariff refunds
In a world that no longer seems to care about doing anything out of principle, the shippers could have kept all that money and booked it as profit too. They didn’t.
Who didn’t keep their word? The list is long. The president. Retailers. Brands. It’s why I’m still not wearing a David Yurman toggle chain necklace.
When life stops making sense, we shop. More soon.
