A regular importer who routinely pays customs duties is now owed money by Customs and Border Protection. Can they now set off future duties against the balance owed them? Normally, reciprocal debt cancellation is legal.
replyThe U.S. Treasury has a whole system for this, but in the other direction. If the government owes you money, and you owe the government money, the Treasury will deduct what you owe from whatever they are paying out.[1] But they're not set up for that in the other direction.
Smart money is that they will make some token comment about "leave it up to the states" or lower courts and then do absolutely nothing about it
replyThe feds are the ones that control import duties, not the states. The courts will decide two years from now what to do.
reply> The difference this time is the scale is orders of magnitude larger.
replyThe administration will just do nothing. They need 3 maneuvers for this to drag out longer than Trump 2.
There is no intention to follow the law here.