Among the many uncertainties clouding the US economic picture are tariffs.

Both the prospect of new ones and upcoming refunds from recent tariffs deemed illegal.

And there are a number of questions for businesses and consumers alike.

Our Stephanie Sai has more.

In February, the Supreme Court struck down the sweeping tariffs imposed by President Trump under the International Emergency Economic Powers Act.

Now, businesses are scrambling to get their money back.

Last week, US Customs and Border Protection started accepting refund claims for 166 billion dollar in tariffs collected over the past year, including from companies such as Basic Fun, which sells toys familiar to many of us, Tonka Trucks, Care Bears, and Lightbrite.

The CEO, Jay Foreman, joins me now.

Jay, great to have you back on the NewsHour.

So, how much money are you owed and tell us what the process has been like to claim the refund?

Sure.

Well, if all goes well, we've got $7.4 million coming back to us, which we'll use to reinvest in our business and our employees.

Uh, so far, I have to say the process has been smooth.

The CBP set up the portal.

The portal operated pretty well.

you know, couple glitches here and there uh last Monday when we were able to start loading everything in, but we've got all our invoices and claims loaded and all we're doing is waiting for the magic uh day when they push the button and actually the money starts to flow back in the form of refunds.

Uh that's, you know, at this point that's what we're waiting for.

Everything else is locked and loaded.

Do you have any idea when that button is going to get pushed and how does it come out?

Is it just all in one lump sum?

We believe that somewhere in the next 45 to 60 days, maybe 90 days at most, but we haven't been told.

There's no posting on the portal that tells you when to expect uh those refunds to come in.

And we're really not sure whether they're going to come in, it's all going to come in in one shot or it's going to, you know, sort of dribble in invoice by invoice.

So, we've got 560 individual import invoices logged into the computer.

Um, we're hoping that it's going to come back in, you know, one lump sum.

Uh, but we really have no idea right now.

We're just, you know, sort of sitting and waiting.

Well, I know that your business basically sells toys to the major retailers who then sell to customers, right?

Some of those retailers, as you know, passed on sir charges to customers.

You said that you're planning to invest these millions back into the business.

Will customers ever reap any benefit from the tariff refunds?

I I think in some ways they will.

You know, major retailers that were in the position that they had to pass along refunds if they decide to take the refund or they had to pass along tariffs.

if they decide to take the refund, they've got a lot of opportunities to sort of provide deals and and and get money back to consumers in a in a lot of different ways, whether that's discounting products or giving folks credits.

Um the challenge more is with smaller medium-siz companies that weren't able to pass those costs along.

For us, it just came right off the bottom line.

So our plan is really to reinvest this in our business, pay down some debt, uh invest in some new equipment, uh in invest in our employees.

So the I think the most important thing is when this money is returned, it will be invested back into the economy in some ways through pricing to consumers and they'll see it.

In other ways, it'll go back to companies that can return it to shareholders or reinvested in their business.

It's not quite like shooting a missile off that explodes and not only do you never see that money again, but you have to replace that missile.

When that money comes back into the economy and into uh the folks that pay the tariffs, it's going to be reinvested into this country and you'll see an e an economic boom to the tune of 160 billion or more dollars coming back into the market here.

Were there any losses or business impacts that the refund can't make up for?

Yeah, I'll give you a perfect example.

You know, we purchased the assets of a great company called Arcade OneUp.

It's a it's a company that makes, you know, sort of Pac-Man and video game machines that you can put in your home game room.

And they got hit super hard, not only by the tariffs, but even before the tariffs, by the supply chain crisis and the cost of freight and transportation and the girrations in the market around COVID.

And in the end, it was the tariffs that really put the nail in the coffin for them and they weren't able to make it.

And so we were able to purchase the assets of the company, keep a number of the employees employed and bring that product line back to the market.

And there are dozens if not hundreds of companies in the same situation.

Uh people, small businesses, I like to call them the sort of Shark Tank generation where people that have created basements in their homes and in their garages that are using their own money and their savings to create businesses that don't have leverage to pass that those costs along.

Those folks really suffered and that money needs to come back to them and I'm sure they will be reinvesting all that money back into their lives, into their businesses and and a lot of them just to repay debt that they might have taken on in order to, you know, finance their businesses and support the payment of these tariffs.

Jay, are you confident that there won't be any more tariffs in the future?

I mean, do you have to plan your business for the eventuality that they could come back since COVID and the supply chain crisis and this whole tariff situation?

We're always planning for worst case scenario.

Uh right now tariffs are 10% which are workable.

There is a there are cases going through the courts right now to try to strike those 10% tariffs down.

The administration is talking about imposing a different regimen of tariffs, 301 tariffs.

So, we have to assume that that this administration is still looking in some form to place tariffs.

Whether they stay on industries like the toy business or the government focuses on really strategic industries, uh, that's left to be determined.

But, you know, we're we have to continue to sort of have a chaos mentality that whether it's the administration doing things that are upsetting the market or the world doing things that are upsetting the market, that's the business environment many of us are in right now and we just uh have to hunker down and uh hope for the best and prepare for the worst.

That is Jay Foreman, CEO of the toy company Basic Fund joining us.

Thank you, Jay.

Thank you.

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