(Credit: RICHARD A. BROOKS/AFP via Getty Images)
Nintendo is taking the White House to court, demanding a full refund for what it paid to cover the Trump administration’s now-voided tariffs.
Nintendo filed the lawsuit today in the US Court of International Trade, two weeks after the Supreme Court struck down Trump's "reciprocal tariffs” and those on China, Canada, and Mexico.
The lawsuit, spotted by Aftermath, also calls for the White House to pay interest. Nintendo accuses various federal agencies of engaging in “unlawful trade measures that have, to date, resulted in the collection of more than $200 billion in tariffs on imports from nearly all countries.”
Nintendo’s complaint doesn’t say how much it paid in tariffs. But it was likely a lot considering the company imported numerous Switch consoles from Cambodia and Vietnam, two countries that were ensnared in Trump’s reciprocal tariffs.
Nintendo joins a wave of businesses suing the Trump administration for refunds. The US Court of International Trade shows that over 380 tariff and customs-related lawsuits have been filed against the US government since the Supreme Court ruling. Other lawsuits were filed earlier, bringing the total to about 2,000, according to one law firm.
On Wednesday, a judge for the Court of International Trade ordered the Trump administration to begin reimbursements. However, on Friday, US Customs and Border Protection said it couldn’t immediately comply with the order, partly because of IT troubles.
“CBP is now facing an unprecedented volume of refunds. Its existing administrative procedures and technology are not well-suited to a task of this scale and will require manual work that will prevent personnel from fully carrying out the agency’s trade enforcement mission,” it said.
That said, CBP is preparing a new IT system to handle the refunds “for use in 45 days.” The agency also estimates it collected $166 billion under the now-invalid tariffs.