The Supreme Court struck down a centerpiece of President Donald Trump’s tariff agenda on Friday, also dealing a blow to the possibility of sending so-called tariff dividend checks to families, experts say.
“Tariff dividends were a long shot from the beginning,” said certified financial planner Stephen Kates, a financial analyst at Bankrate. “Given the White House’s lack of authority to unilaterally issue stimulus checks to Americans, the idea was largely aspirational,” he said.
Any such broad-based benefit program would require legislation passed by Congress. Following a major Supreme Court defeat and with an ongoing partisan battle in Washington, congressional approval would be especially difficult, he said.
“Even if tariffs were to return to prior levels and generate revenue for a broad stimulus program, there does not appear to be sufficient political support to move such a measure through Congress,” Kates said. “The odds of this policy moving forward is now effectively zero.”
The Supreme Court decided in a 6-3 tariff ruling that the president wrongfully invoked the International Emergency Economic Powers Act, or IEEPA, to implement a large portion of his trade agenda.
Shortly after the high court’s ruling, Trump said he would sign an executive order imposing a new 10% “global tariff” using a different legal authority, and then increased the rate to 15%.
In a Truth Social post, Trump said the new tariffs will be “effective immediately,” but it was unclear if any official documents were signed detailing the timing.
“Even if the tariffs challenged by the Supreme Court’s decision are replaced by other trade taxes on Americans, the widening federal deficit should make everyone skeptical that these checks will ever be in the mail,” said Brett House, an economics professor at Columbia Business School.
On Friday, Treasury Secretary Scott Bessent said during an appearance at the Economic Club of Dallas that tariff revenue “will be little changed” — despite the Supreme Court ruling — under Section 122 of the Trade Act of 1974. That statute grants the president temporary authority to reimpose his tariff agenda, and potentially paves the way for a one-time $2,000-per-person tariff rebate for some U.S. households.
On Monday, a White House official told CNBC in an email that “as Sec. Bessent has made clear, tariff revenue is expected to remain robust with the use Section 122 tariffs, and the Administration is committed to putting that revenue to good use for the American people.”
‘A dividend of at least $2,000’
The president first floated the idea of making direct distributions to Americans in July. Sen. Josh Hawley, R-Mo., then introduced the American Worker Rebate Act of 2025, which pitched a stimulus check funded with tariff revenue. The Senate referred that bill to the Committee on Finance, where it remains.
Later in the year, Trump said that a rebate check with the money his tariffs had generated would be forthcoming.
“A dividend of at least $2000 a person (not including high income people!) will be paid to everyone,” he wrote in a post on Truth Social in November.
At the end of 2025, National Economic Council Director Kevin Hassett also said that “the president will bring forth a proposal to Congress to make that happen.”
When asked about tariff rebates in January, Trump said the checks would come “toward the end of the year.”
The status of tariff refunds
The Trump administration may still have to refund the tariffs already paid to the entities that paid them.
Tariffs are a tax on imports from foreign nations and are paid for by U.S. entities that import the good or service. Companies often bear some of the cost and pass on the rest to consumers through higher prices.
The Supreme Court did not rule on potential tariff refunds, but if the U.S. has to pay businesses back, that would erode the surplus tariff revenue, which would have funded dividend checks. For now, potential tariff refunds are up in the air. Even who is eligible and how they would be able to apply is unclear, experts say.
“The court did not rule on refunds, but either way it would be hard to see that tariffs get handed out to those previously not taxed by tariffs rather than those previously taxed,” said Tomas Philipson, a professor of public policy studies at the University of Chicago and former acting chair of the White House Council of Economic Advisers.