Illinois governor JB Pritzker has sent US President Donald Trump an invoice demanding nearly US$9 billion in tariff refunds for his state's families after the Supreme Court ruled the administration's much-touted tariffs are illegal.

Pritzker urged the White House to "cut the check" after justices ruled by a 6-3 margin that Trump had exceeded his authority by invoking emergency powers to impose tariffs that reshaped global trade and pushed up prices at home.

"Your tariff taxes wreaked havoc on farmers, enraged our allies and sent grocery prices through the roof," the veteran Democrat wrote, warning that further legal action could follow if compensation was not forthcoming.

In the letter shared with US media, Pritzker demanded about US$1,700 for every Illinois household – the amount Yale University experts said the average US household would pay on tariffs last year.

Pritzker wasn't alone in seeking payback – both political and literal – for widespread consumer woes.

Earlier in the day, California governor Gavin Newsom said the money Trump's tariffs had raised came from US voters' pockets – and should be refunded.

"Time to pay the piper, Donald. These tariffs were nothing more than an illegal cash grab that drove up prices and hurt working families, so you could wreck longstanding alliances and extort them," he said.

"Every dollar unlawfully taken must be refunded immediately – with interest. Cough up!"

Pritzker and Newsom are widely seen as a potential Democratic contenders in the 2028 presidential race.

Their demands add a populist flourish to a complicated legal and economic reality.

Announced with fanfare last April, Trump's tariffs have raised more than US$130 billion from importers, with a significant proportion of that extra cost passed on to consumers through higher prices.

The scale of potential repayments is vast. The influential Penn-Wharton Budget Model has estimated that refunds could total $175 billion, though it's unclear who would ultimately receive the money.

Trump himself acknowledged that any refund process could take years.

In his dissent, Trump-appointed conservative Justice Brett Kavanaugh noted Friday's ruling "says nothing today about whether, and if so how, the government should go about returning the billions of dollars that it has collected from importers."

New York's Democratic governor, Kathy Hochul, called the Trump administration's tariffs "an unlawful backdoor tax on hardworking families, farmers and small businesses, raising prices on everything from groceries to building materials" – without demanding refunds. (AFP)



Edited by Robert Kemp