A Danish company has received a refund after the US Supreme Court declared tariffs illegal.
The United States government has repaid billions of dollars that were collected in tariffs before the country’s Supreme Court ruled that the tariffs were illegal.
This is shown by new budget figures published on Monday, according to The Guardian.
Tariffs, which are taxes on imported goods, have been a cornerstone of Donald Trump’s economic plan since he took office again last year.
But in February, the Supreme Court struck down a large portion of the additional tariffs imposed by Trump, and the government was forced to pay the money back to the companies that had paid them.
According to the data, the government started disbursing the money this fiscal year, which began in October 2025.
So far, 81 billion dollars have been paid out. This corresponds to DKK 530 billion. In comparison, the amount was five billion dollars the year before.
An official from the US Treasury explains to The Guardian that the sharp increase is almost entirely due to the Supreme Court decision, and that the vast majority of repayments fell in May and June.
The companies themselves have had to apply for reimbursement. Among those who have been approved for repayment is the Danish Grafisk Maskinfabrik from Birkerød.
Grafisk Maskinfabrik’s director, Uffe Nielsen, announced this to Børsen on 7 July.
Grafisk Maskinfabrik has, among other things, a factory in the USA and produces machines for the production of components for solar cells and car batteries as well as for the production of labels.
40 percent of the company’s exports go to the American market, said Uffe Nielsen.
– In 2026, we have provisionally been reimbursed DKK 830,000. It is a very slow process, and the US administration is resisting, he told Børsen.
Trump presented the tariffs as a solution to America’s poor economy last April. Virtually all countries in the world were targeted by the tariffs.
But the deficit on the state budget, which had otherwise shrunk a bit last year thanks to customs revenues, has now grown again. It hit $1367 billion in the first nine months of the fiscal year, up 2 percent.
The national debt of the United States is today almost 39,500 billion dollars.
The United States spent over $1 trillion just paying interest on its debt, an increase of 14 percent. Military expenditure also increased by 5 percent due to the war in the Middle East.
RITZAU
