The United States faces a staggering bill: more than $200 billion in tariffs that the Supreme Court has ruled were illegally collected. The legal battle over tariff refunds is intensifying. States and private firms have filed a stream of suits demanding that the government comply with court orders requiring the return of unlawfully collected tariffs, immediately. An entire legal and financial ecosystem is emerging around this tariff chaos. If trade policy becomes an instrument of improvisation rather than law, the consequences will extend far beyond tariffs—to diplomacy, investment, and global economic leadership. Rebuilding confidence in the international trading system will require rejecting unilateralism and protectionism and recommitting to the international legal and trading systems the US helped construct and led in the aftermath of the last century’s economic and political crises of the Great Depression, World War II and the Cold War. Trade policy and foreign policy cannot be based on threats and personal grievances.

1. Introduction
2. The Legal Action
3. The Administration
4. The Iran War
5. Conclusion

• Stuart S. Malawer(Distinguished Service Professor of Law and International Trade Emeritus at George Mason University)