Walmart, Home Depot, Target apply
President Donald Trump said last month he would watch out for companies that don’t seek tariff rebates after the Supreme Court struck down his sweeping global mandates.
At first some big companies Amazon They often appear to delay asking for the money back out of concern that they would upset the president making the transactions and end up in the crosshairs, CNBC reported earlier this year. But now some of the largest US companies Walmart with Apple They confirmed that they were seeking what they were owed, regardless of the consequences.
Home Depot, General Engines, John Deere, FedEx And costco It is among other major U.S. companies that say they are trying to get refunds. These moves may not represent a major change in the way companies manage their relationships with Trump. Even so, they show notable examples of when companies are willing to publicly sever ties with the president, after the president told CNBC that companies would “remember” if he decided not to seek refunds.
There is a strong business incentive to apply and, for many, a fiduciary responsibility. Large companies have a chance to potentially recoup billions of dollars and maximize shareholder returns.
More than $35 billion has already been processed and transferred to businesses’ bank accounts, U.S. Customs and Border Protection said in a court filing earlier this month. The government owes approximately $166 billion in total repayments.
‘I will remember them’
When Trump took the stageLast month, CNBC’s Andrew Ross Sorkin said Apple was among the companies that held off on applying for refunds out of concern it would upset the president. “If they don’t do that, great,” Trump said in response.
“Actually, if they’re not doing this, they must know me very well,” he said. “I’m very honored by what you just said.”
“If they don’t do this, I will remember them,” Trump said.
The comments struck a chord in Washington, where lobbyists and business groups initially said they caused some importers to hesitate over whether to apply for the money due. The companies are trying to analyze what exactly the president might have meant by his remarks and whether and how the administration might retaliate against them for moving forward with the process.
But the threat did not stop America’s largest companies from trying to get back the tariffs they paid. Take Walmart, the largest retailer in the USA; He drew Trump’s ire last year by saying he might have to raise prices in return for tariffs, prompting Trump to tell the retailer to “eat the tariffs” and warn he would “be watching.”
In an interview with CNBC on Thursday, Walmart finance chief John David Rainey confirmed that the company had filed to get back the money it paid for the so-called IEEPA tariffs, but did not expect a huge windfall if it was refunded.
“We took advantage of the option to participate in these refunds. For us, this is a relatively small portion of our overall business,” Rainey said while discussing the company’s first-quarter financial results. “You have to be an importer of record to qualify for these refunds, and for us where we are the importer of record, that’s about half of 1% of our U.S. sales.”
Walmart US had net sales of $483 billion in 2026, its most recent fiscal year; So half of 1% will total about $2.42 billion. While that total is larger than the annual revenue of many companies, Rainey said it doesn’t matter much for a business that had more than $713 billion in total revenue last fiscal year.
Still, “every little bit counts,” he said.
“We will prioritize these refunds as we receive them to invest in price for our customers,” he said. “Given where we are now, both with the stress on the consumer and the preservation of equity gains, we recognize that the best return on investment on those capital dollars is to invest in price for our clients.”
Walmart is among the companies that have said they might try to use the money to benefit customers, even indirectly. Implementing refunds in a way that keeps prices low for consumers has become a theme among companies applying for them.
“The thing we heard most from a usage standpoint was that this would help us avoid raising prices as quickly as we thought we would,” said Neil Bradley, policy chief at the U.S. Chamber of Commerce. “That’s a hard thing to telegraph, but it’s true.”
Walmart confirmed on Thursday that it had sought the money back after Target CFO Jim Lee said on Wednesday that the company was “working through the process” of getting a refund. Home Depot chief financial officer Richard McPhail also said Tuesday that the retailer had applied and “received a paltry amount to date.”
“We assumed that this could offset those costs significantly,” he told analysts.
A representative of an influential business group said some firms were looking for ways to spend the refunded money in a way that would satisfy both the White House and their customers. For example, Apple said that it applied for a tariff refund after Trump’s statements.
Apple CEO Tim Cook said on a call with analysts last month that he plans to reinvest any money he makes into “US innovation and advanced manufacturing,” a big priority for Trump.
Meanwhile, other major companies have remained silent on whether they will try to claw back their tariff payments.
Amazon, which was sued in a class-action lawsuit last week over its decision not to issue refunds, did not respond to requests for comment on whether it would file to get the money back.
Others are not ready to accept repayment plans one way or another. On Wednesday, Lowe’s CEO Marvin Ellison would not say whether the retailer had applied.
“We’re just monitoring the situation,” Ellison said. “We haven’t talked publicly about whether we’re going to apply, but what we’ve done is we’ve been paying really close attention to the situation, understanding that when tariff refunds are made, it’s going to go to everybody, and so we’re trying to determine right now if and when those refunds are going to happen.”
