By Tom Hals
2026年3月6日 美国东部时间上午5:19 更新于2小时前
U.S. President Donald Trump delivers remarks on tariffs in the Rose Garden at the White House in Washington, D.C., U.S., April 2, 2025. REUTERS/Carlos Barria/File Photo
- 政府称数百万份记录可能需要人工审核
- 约2000起美国进口商发起的退款诉讼
- 会议定于美国东部时间上午10:30举行
3月6日（路透社）- 一名美国法官将于周五闭门会见政府律师，试图制定一项流程，以退还高达1750亿美元的非法征收关税。一名法院官员称此次会议为”和解会议”。
美国国际贸易法院的理查德·伊顿（Richard Eaton）法官将与代表负责向超过30万已缴纳关税的进口商进行赔偿的海关机构的律师会面。上月，这些关税被裁定违宪。
路透社伊朗简报通讯将为您提供伊朗战争最新动态和分析。[在此注册]。
政府律师表示，退还唐纳德·特朗普总统标志性关税的流程规模史无前例，需要人工审核数千万笔关税支付记录。
美国法院原则上对公众开放，尽管法官有时会与各方举行私下会议讨论日程安排或如何处理敏感信息。
法院网站上的日程表将周五的会议描述为”闭门会议”。当被问及为何会议不对公众开放时，贸易法院书记员吉娜·贾斯蒂斯（Gina Justice）周四告诉路透社，这是一次”和解会议”。
伊顿正在监督的制定退款流程的案件由单一进口商Atmus Filtration Inc提起，该公司在法庭文件中称已支付1100万美元非法关税。
根据法庭卷宗，Atmus的律师将能够远程参加周五的会议。他们和美国海关与边境保护局（U.S. Customs and Border Protection）未回应置评请求。
目前尚不清楚上周提起的Atmus案为何成为可能决定约2000起关税退款诉讼如何诉讼的关键案例。
这位法官表示，他是被法院选定审理这些案件的，希望制定一个无需诉诸法庭的流程。
伊顿周三在Atmus案中发布了一项全面命令，指示美国海关与边境保护局（CBP）开始使用该机构现有的内部流程向潜在数十万进口商退还非法征收的关税。该命令明确适用于所有进口商，而非仅Atmus一家。
特朗普的大部分关税被美国最高法院推翻，最高法院2月20日裁定特朗普越权，推翻了其经济政策的关键部分。法院未就退款流程提供指导，异议法官布雷特·卡瓦诺（Brett Kavanaugh）警告称，这一流程可能成为”一团糟”。
绝大多数进口商是小型企业，许多人担心退款流程将耗资巨大且分散精力。
伊顿表示，他预计美国海关与边境保护局的律师将参加周五美国东部时间上午10:30（格林尼治标准时间15:30）的会议，他称之为”会议”，以解决如何处理7900万笔运输单据的问题并发布退款。
“我相信这一切对任何人来说都不必变得混乱，因为我知道你们会努力找到一种方法来完成它，”伊顿在周三的听证会上表示，”所以周五，我们至少会听取海关方面关于如何推进的初步想法。”
参与其他贸易退款案件的一名律师告诉路透社，他们认为此次会议将在周五之前公布一个流程，为绝大多数进口商提供相对快速的退款，而无需提起诉讼。
如VOS Selections和Learning Resources等进口商的案件于2025年初提起，并一直上诉至最高法院。VOS Selections和其他几家进口商的法律团队已请求审理其案件的法官将案件转移给伊顿，但法院尚未采取行动。
汤姆·哈尔（Tom Hals）报道，诺埃琳·沃尔德（Noeleen Walder）、丹·伯恩斯（Dan Burns）和威廉·马拉德（William Mallard）编辑
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Exclusive: US judge to meet parties on Trump-tariff refunds in closed-door ‘settlement conference’
By Tom Hals
March 6, 2026 5:19 AM UTC Updated 2 hours ago
节点运行失败
U.S. President Donald Trump delivers remarks on tariffs in the Rose Garden at the White House in Washington, D.C., U.S., April 2, 2025. REUTERS/Carlos Barria/File Photo
- Government says millions of records may need manual review
- Around 2,000 refund lawsuits filed by US importers
- Conference scheduled for 10:30 a.m. ET
March 6 (Reuters) – A U.S. judge will meet behind closed doors with government lawyers on Friday seeking to hammer out a process to refund up to $175 billion in illegally collected tariffs, a meeting a court official described as a “settlement conference.”
Judge Richard Eaton of the U.S. Court of International Trade will meet with lawyers representing the customs agency responsible for reimbursing more than 300,000 importers that paid the tariffs, which were struck down last month as unconstitutional.
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Government lawyers have said the process for refunding President Donald Trump’s signature tariffs was unprecedented in scope and would require manual review of tens of millions of tariff payments.
U.S. courts are presumed to be open to the public, although judges will sometimes hold private meetings with parties to discuss scheduling or how to handle sensitive information.
The calendar on the court’s website describes Friday’s meeting as a “closed conference.” When asked why the meeting was closed to the public, Gina Justice, the clerk for the trade court, told Reuters on Thursday that it was a “settlement conference.”
The case that Eaton is overseeing to create a refund process was brought by a single importer, Atmus Filtration Inc, which said in a court filing it had paid $11 million in illegal tariffs.
Atmus’ lawyers will be able to attend Friday’s meeting remotely, according to the court docket. They and the agency, U.S. Customs and Border Protection, did not respond to requests for comment.
It is unclear why the Atmus case, which was filed last week, became the vehicle that may determine how to litigate the tariff refunds for around 2,000 cases.
The judge, who said he was chosen by the court to hear those cases, said he wanted a process that would not require going to court.
Eaton issued a sweeping order on Wednesday in the Atmus case directing the CBP to begin refunding illegally collected tariffs to potentially hundreds of thousands of importers using the agency’s existing internal process. The order made clear that it applied to all importers, not just Atmus.
A broad swath of Trump’s tariffs were struck down by the U.S. Supreme Court, which ruled on February 20 that Trump had exceeded his authority, upending a key plank of his economic policy. The court did not provide guidance on refunds, a process that dissenting Justice Brett Kavanaugh warned could be a “mess.”
The vast majority of importers are small businesses, and many worry that the refund process will be costly and distracting.
Eaton said he expected CBP lawyers to attend Friday’s 10:30 a.m. ET (1530 GMT) meeting, which he called a conference, to resolve how to cut through paperwork on 79 million shipments and issue refunds.
“I don’t believe that any of this has to be chaotic with respect to anybody, because I know that you’re going to try to come up with a way of doing it,” Eaton said at Wednesday’s hearing. “And so on Friday, we’re going to hear at least the initial ideas from the customs service as to how this will proceed.”
An attorney involved with other trade refund cases told Reuters they believed the meeting would result in a process that would be made public as soon as Friday that would provide relatively quick refunds for the vast majority of importers without the need to sue.
Cases by importers such as VOS Selections and Learning Resources were filed early in 2025 and went all the way to the Supreme Court. The legal team for VOS Selections and several other importers had asked the judges handling their cases to transfer them to Eaton, although the court has not taken action.
Reporting by Tom Hals in Wilmington, Delaware; Editing by Noeleen Walder, Dan Burns and William Mallard
Our Standards: The Thomson Reuters Trust Principles.
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