Tariff policy moves from court refunds to exporters and origin rules
Corporate refund expectations, Colombia’s request for relief after an earthquake and Singapore’s defense of its origin controls show tariff policy moving through profits, recovery and supply chains.
Economics & Markets··Morning
Refunds that reach the earnings line
Apollo chief economist Torsten Slok writes that refunds returned after the Supreme Court struck down tariffs imposed under emergency economic powers are now lifting earnings at large importers and adding to the third-quarter growth figure. His note puts the refunds at more than 100 billion dollars for US businesses and importers; 40 companies in the S&P 500 booked 9.6 billion dollars between them, and Apple alone received nearly 2.2 billion dollars. Nike, FedEx, Amazon and General Motors sit among the other named recipients. Slok estimates the refunds add about 0.2 percentage points to third-quarter growth, which the Atlanta Fed tracking estimate puts at 4.3 per cent. The ruling voided 166 billion dollars of tariff revenue collected under the International Emergency Economic Powers Act in February 2026. He also attributes the wider growth pace to artificial-intelligence spending, tax cuts and reshoring, yet the refund line itself shows how a court outcome can travel into corporate profits and the national growth arithmetic.[1]
A pause sought after the earthquake
Colombian President Abelardo de la Espriella said he asked Donald Trump in a phone call to suspend the tariffs temporarily so exporters can recover from a 7.4-magnitude earthquake that killed at least 294 people. US tariffs on Colombian goods had risen from 10 per cent to 12.5 per cent on 24 July, with coffee and oil among the exceptions, after Washington cited failures to uphold anti-forced-labour measures. De la Espriella described the roughly 10-minute call as friendly and cordial, put reconstruction at about 6.4 billion dollars, and noted that the United States is the country’s largest export market. Trump offered condolences for the deaths; no decision on the request was announced. Tariff policy here moves from a refund line on corporate books to a recovery timetable after disaster: when the largest export market is also the source of the extra duty, a temporary pause carries both commercial and humanitarian urgency.[2]
Origin rules under a Washington list
Singapore’s Ministry of Trade and Industry said on 15 August that companies moving goods through the port must declare origin accurately, after a Trump administration report issued on 13 August placed the country inside what it called a shadow transshipment network. The report estimated tariff-evading transshipment at between 40 billion dollars and 303 billion dollars a year and sorted about 40 economies into three tiers, placing Singapore in the third alongside Cambodia, Laos, Myanmar and the Philippines. The ministry pointed to the Regulation of Imports and Exports Act 1995 and a June 2025 Singapore Customs circular requiring accurate origin declarations and five years of supporting documents, and said an incorrect declaration may be an offence. It also cited charges brought on 14 August against a locally registered company and three individuals over bedding products declared with a false origin. In August 2025 the United States announced an extra 40 per cent tariff on goods found to have been illegally transshipped. Refund expectations, a post-quake relief request and origin enforcement spread the same policy across different surfaces: the earnings line, the recovery plan, and the paperwork that travels with every shipment through a port.[3], [1], [2]
