In the midst of the America-Israel war with Iran, it's easy to forget about pesky things like the economy. Even if you do manage to tune out the scaremongering lunatics who spend their time propagandizing for radical Islam or predicting World War III, economic concerns are now viewed almost entirely through the lens of this war. Usually, it's in the form of "what else could we have spent this money on," as if a lack of budget is anywhere near a real concern for anyone in Washington, D.C., or that the only reason we haven't solved hunger, poverty or cancer is a lack of investment.

But the economy plods along regardless, and there's now a monumental issue that's flying beneath the radar: tariff refunds, with the Trump administration quietly rolling out their system to refund importers for tariffs after the Supreme Court struck down much of the president's bizarre and aimless trade policy.

Yes, the government is now accepting requests for refunds to the total amount of $166 billion, albeit through a predictably clunky and unreliable system that is less like Amazon's returns system and more like asking for a refund from that sketchy guy on Facebook Marketplace who sold you a suspicious box of mystery items he found on the back of a truck.

But nonetheless, refunds always sound good, right? Who doesn't like a good refund? When you return some of your online purchases, it feels a bit like making money, doesn't it? And we all love tax refunds, even though it's less of a refund and more of an interest-free loan to the government.

But here's the problem: Even if businesses do get refunded for tariffs collected since Trump returned to the White House... not only will you not see a single penny of this refund in your account, but you will be left with the bill.

You may remember, long ago, back in 2025, that when Trump imposed tariffs, prices went up. No matter how hard they tried, how hard they lied, and how much gaslighting they engaged in, prices went up. According to the Tax Foundation, tariffs increased overall retail prices of imported goods by about 7%age points compared to the pretariff trend, with clothing increasing by 17.5%, building materials increasing by 10.5%, coffee and tea increasing by 10%, fish and seafood increasing by 7.9%, household textiles increasing by 8% and furniture increasing by 7.4%.

In other words, if you bought clothes sometime between January 2025 and February 2026, you paid almost 20% more, thanks to the tariffs. And good luck if you tried to build a home.

Regardless of what was tariffed, you — the consumer — paid for it, like I tried to tell you at the time.

But it gets worse. Assuming this refund system works — a big, beautiful "if" — businesses who increased their prices by, say, 20% will now seek a refund of this amount from the federal government. But they would be refunded for a cost that they didn't even bear!

Because by increasing their prices to offset the tariff, the cost was passed onto you. And guess who will be paying for this "refund" that will go straight back into the hands of the people who didn't pay for it? We will, the American taxpayers!

We paid for tariffs on the front end, and we're paying for them again on the back end.

That's one expensive cup of coffee, folks.

To find out more about Ian Haworth and read features by other Creators Syndicate writers and cartoonists, visit the Creators Syndicate website at www.creators.com.

Photo credit: Giorgio Trovato at Unsplash