Supreme Court Overturns Trump’s Import Tariffs
Good news!
We hope you are well. We wanted to take a moment and share the good news that the Supreme Court has upheld two previous court rulings and determined that the import tariffs imposed by the Trump Administration are, indeed, illegal.
This is a big relief for US flower bulb suppliers and growers. News of the ruling came Friday morning, just after we requested that our bank make a large wire transfer for the import tariff payment on our in-progress lily shipment. Fortunately, we were able to call that wire back before it went through. We are waiting further instructions from our brokers pending the arrival of this container in port in New York late this week. This may be a surprising benefit of that shipment running late. If it had arrived on time, we most certainly would have already paid that tariff fee.
The First Test for the New Ruling:
We will put the new ruling to the test right away. We have shipments arriving at US Customs in New York this Tuesday and Wednesday. We’ll be picking up the in vitro tissue culture plants (alstroemeria and other specialty perennials) in person. We will not be able to walk away with those without paying the duties the US Customs demands we pay, so we’re going to see what happens. Linda will go in person to that shipment pick up.
We also have a shipment of bare root perennials arriving this week. Those will be received by our customs brokers and transferred to our warehouse. We will hear from the brokers about any tariffs they are forced to pay at pick up.
Our first hope is that we will see the application of the court’s ruling right away and that our imported spring products will no longer require payment of these excessive tariffs. We’ll know what is happening very soon.
What does this mean for spring product invoicing?
If the tariffs are no longer required, per the court’s ruling, we will be going back into every invoice with lilies, spring bulbs, and spring bare roots that we’ve invoiced so far to refund the tariff (if already paid) / remove the tariff fee (from unpaid invoices).
What about past tariff fees paid?
The refund of tariffs already paid by importers like us to the Trump Administration over the last year is uncertain at this point. We are following the suggestions of our customs brokers and liasons to make sure we are registered for the appropriate payment portal system in case we can get a refund of those fees. In the event that we do, WE WILL ABSOLUTELY RETURN TARIFF FEES TO OUR CUSTOMERS. If the administration decides instead to return blanket, equal funds to every taxpayer (refunds directly to the consumer, instead of to vendors) we will not be able to act on past invoices.
What about existing fall inventory that has not shipped?
We have some remaining fall inventory that is on sale, and some fall peony orders for customers that requested spring shipping. Those invoices will still have the tariff fee on them, because those import tariffs were paid last fall when the products came in. Hopefully the 50% sale still makes them appealing. The sale and shipping on clearance fall products ends February 28th. That’s when we’ll begin to transition to listing the fall 2026 products!
Additional Costs of the Tariff Policy:
Another frustrating effect of the Trump Administration’s executive orders demanding payment of these tariffs has been the logistics and time required to apply them to orders. Days of our team’s time have been lost calculating fees, adding fees, explaining fees, adjusting fees when orders are changed, and now removing/refunding fees. We know we will not be able to re-coup those losses.
We remain hopeful that we will see a refund for the money paid to the Trump Admin for our 2025 imports, which totaled over $100,000.00. We would like to return that money to customers.
As always, please let us know if you have any questions. Continue to lobby your representatives. Tell them that you know you deserve the tariff money back!
