The wholesaler is the latest company to file a lawsuit against a federal agency over the president’s signature economic policy.
Costco Wholesale has filed a lawsuit against the Trump administration, asking the Court of International Trade to consider all tariffs collected under the International Emergency Economic Powers Act unlawful.
The company said in a Nov. 28 filing that it is seeking a “full refund” of all IEEPA duties paid as a result of Donald Trump’s executive order which imposed what he called “reciprocal” tariffs.
“Because IEEPA does not clearly authorize the President to set tariffs…the Challenged Tariff Orders cannot stand and the defendants are not authorized to implement and collect them,” Costco’s lawyer writes in the lawsuit.
Global cosmetics giant Revlon, eyeglass maker EssilorLuxottica, motorcycle manufacturer Kawasaki, canned foods seller Bumble Bee, Japanese auto supplier Yokohama Tire and many smaller firms have also filed similar suits
This is how they transfer wealth from consumers to corporations
We pay the tariffs Corporations get the tariff refund
Trickle up economics as usual
If you look at Costco’s actions in the past they have been pretty fair for their customers. Costco is actually in a very good position where they know exactly who bought what and Costco can issue refunds to their customers based on that data. Even if they just do it as ‘store credit’ it would still be very welcome to most of their customers and that would help to offset Costco’s administrative costs of determining the refund amounts for everyone.
I like Costco as much as the next person but they will absolutely not be refunding us based on what we purchased lol
I’ll happily eat these words but im fairly certain I won’t have to
The article states that on a bunch of items they’ve just been eating the cost so they’ve been paying the tariffs instead of passing them on. For those cases, there is nothing to refund to the consumers.
Yeah but it doesn’t state they’ve eaten the tariffs on everything just certain staple items
And I would wager those items they’ve eaten the cost on, is what they’re seeking compensation on.
Nah as it stands, costco is a bro.
Used to be then they became one of the worst customer service sites to visit. I hate Walmart and Sam’s club with a passion, but damn if their denial of my kids to run inside and go to the bathroom while I got gas pissed me off to no end.
Probably not, but they did state last year that the extra money they made from the gas station (they kept it competitive with other places) was used to keep the yearly “admission” price the same.
I’ve also heard that costco doesn’t suck to work for as far as retail goes and many will actually work most of their career there.
My stepson works for Costco. They are a fantastic employer compared to other retailers. They also do legitimately promote from within, including for business office professional positions.
Fwiw the people seem cheerful enough. At least not dead inside like Wal mart or any other big chain.
You didn’t actually read the article did you?
From the article:
In May, on Costco’s earnings call, Chief Financial Officer Gary Millerchip told investors that about a third of Costco’s sales in the U.S. are imported products. Millerchip said items imported from China represented about 8% of total U.S. sales.
Millerchip said that while Costco was seeing a direct impact from tariffs on imports of some fresh food items from Central and South America, it decided not to increase prices “because they are key staple items” for its customers.
Some of those fresh food items included pineapples and bananas. “We essentially held the price on those to make sure that we’re protecting the member,” he said.
In September, Millerchip told analysts: “We continue to work closely with our suppliers to find ways to mitigate the impact of tariffs, including moving the country of production where it makes sense and consolidating our buying efforts globally to lower the cost of goods across all our markets.”
Honestly, that’s pretty decent of them.
That’s great but only represents Costco. I purchased a lot of things not from Costco that had explicit tariff surcharges on them
Ok? This article is about Costco
It’s also generally about corporations receiving the tariff refunds and not us
No. That’s what we call “hijacking the thread”, which is just plain rude.
¯\_(ツ)_/¯
Sorry, but you’re wrong here. Discussing the obvious implications (if CostCo wins, so does every other import company) is a natural thing to do in this location. If you don’t like it, don’t follow those threads.
The article literally says Costco is just the latest company to file suit and lists a bunch of other companies too
The article is literally about Costco. They throw in a single line at the very end about some other companies.
So, they shouldn’t challenge the tariffs?
Maybe. It depends on if they raised prices first to capture the losses. I know that seems like what a business would do first and what everyone predicted, but did they?
If it’s true, then Costco just needs to give away free hot dogs meals (drink and side) to their patrons for a year.
My small business did not raise prices, and recouping that $6k would make a HUGE difference for us. But I know most companies probably aren’t in the same boat.
Same here. We sold several computer systems at our original quoted price, and just ate the price increase from our vendors.
What do you think quoted price means…? That’s the risk you take when you quote stuff and prices change within the time they accept it.
Lots of material goods change prices daily.
Not holding up your original quoted price is how you lose business and your business in general. You seem to think that you can just choose to not hold up your end of the agreed upon contract? Yikes.
But hey, such a good business doing what you originally agreed to!
There’s a difference between lamenting the reality of honoring a quote after things change and wishing you didn’t need to. They’re saying they wish the government would pay them back for the tariff, not that they wish they could’ve passed it on to the customer.
So they want the government to fix a regular issue with quoted work…? The price is expected to change, that’s why you quote to begin with…. It’s likely they don’t even know how their system works.
That’s even worse lmfao.
It’s quoted work, it’s volatile already, and the customers game it if they know the material goods in going down. Don’t like it? Don’t quote work. It’s not even a relevant detail to their gripe, just bitching for the sake of bitching at this point.
The price would be different with or without tariffs, but complain without realizing how the system works I guess.
Going through my past three days of comments and down voting them all doesn’t help your argument.
They aren’t just saying “wahhh government, pwease pay the difference of this quote” they’re specifically replying to a thread about a company suing the government for tariff reimbursements and talking about a tariff making the price go up after the quote.
The article states that Costco did not raise the prices on food staples imported from Central America.
Maybe we need a class action saying the same
“reciprocal tariffs”
He just pre-reciprocal-ed the tariffs before the other countries.
Tbh that’s pretty based. Solid move, Costco.
But also, why are the the first large company to do this?
They’re not. Read the article. Or at least the first line of the summary.
From the bottom of the article:
Global cosmetics giant Revlon, eyeglass maker EssilorLuxottica, motorcycle manufacturer Kawasaki, canned foods seller Bumble Bee, Japanese auto supplier Yokohama Tire and many smaller firms have also filed similar suits.
That probably does make Costco the most “known” company to sue.
EssilorLuxottica might be “unknown” but it is the eyeglass maker with a functional monopoly on the industry and parent company to the many better known ‘companies’ such as: Ray-Ban, Oakley, Persol, Oliver Peoples, Vogue Eyewear, LensCrafters, Pearle Vision, Sunglass Hut, EyeMed etc.
I’m aware, I was just pointing out that Costco is more of a household name (and much larger company).
Costco is apparently the third largest retailer in the world. . So it’s a slightly bigger deal when they sue over the tariffs.
That probably does make Costco the most “known” company to sue.
Revlon and Kawasaki are well known international brands…
I didn’t say they weren’t known, just that Costco is certainly the most known (for the US). If you just look at revenue Kawasaki has 5% of the footprint of Costco and Revlon hasn’t posted anything since it’s bankruptcy in 2023 (from what I could find). Revenue might not directly relate to if a company is a household name, but I think it gives a general sense.
Also, I was just noting that Costco is a bigger name. All the companies listed are notable.
But this is planet America.
Walmart switch to electronic price tags making more sense now, to quickly manipulate prices on every taco maneuver
It so they can profile you and adjust their pricing depending on how wealthy you are and if you really need the product. Dynamic pricing is coming and it’s going to be brutal. They’re not collecting these enormous datasets on every household for marketing only.
Not familiar with those price-tags, but how should they do this? Detecting your presence at a product and raise price? What if two ppl are standing there? Three?
And so they can do really evil stuff like gouge you on water when it’s hot out.
I just don’t see that happening when we have Shipt and Instantcart. Will they be profiling the shopper or the shoppers customer? Will we have professional “shoppers” that get discounts for their customers? Amazon tried the regional pricing long ago and it didn’t go over well for them.
Given the price I’ve seen for those services, that will be the first group to get gouged. People are apparently willing to pay a massive premium for them.
I came here to post this article. Glad I searched before posting. Dear Costco, please fuck the Trump administration anally with the barbed wire wrapped dildo of courtroom justice.
Are you one of those people that thinks the Epstein files are going to bring Trump down too? Whem you own the justice system it just lies there and licks your filthy taint.
Good on Costco but at best this will maybe minimize the number of card carrying klan rednecks that shop there and thats about it.
I’m cynical enough to believe that nothing will come of the files, but deep down in my core there is a tiny piece of hope.
What aisle can I find that on? Asking for myself.
Fuck yeah Costco!
Don’t celebrate just yet. Costco will likely take the money for themselves and not do a damn thing for their members.
I’m fine with that as long as he loses.
And they deserve to take the money for themselves since they ate the cost of the tariffs.
What do you expected them to do? Go through every single transaction that has happened since the start of this stupidity and distribute it?
What you need to worry about is how much of that tariffs tax will come out along with the interest cause no company is not going to take no interest.
Now imagine every single company requesting their money plus interest. Lol.
They could easily refund customers as they have the data of every member. But what is more likely is they can discount your membership based on how much you purchased.
Refund them what? Costco ate the tariffs.
I’m with the first guy, but one option might be to give everyone the same gift card based on average the consumer cost. Something would be better than nothing.
I really hope that this goes through.
If Costco doesn’t refund the tariffs to customers, instead bringing back the Kirkland beef lasgana and big muffins, I would be alright with that. The last three or four years had some shrinkflation and loss of variety at Costco, which disappointed me.
While Costco is still one of the best stores to shop at, the American decay is still touching them. It doesn’t feel good.
It has been an devolution at my store: Big lasagna for the last few decades, then a twin pack of smaller ones the last three or four years, and now this flavor is simply gone.
Its a helpless feeling to lose a food you love 💔
I bet you they’ll bring it back bro, I believe in your cause.
