Costco (COST) CEO Ron Vachris said the company plans to use any tariff refunds it receives from the US government to create “lower prices and better values” for customers, saying on the earnings call that the wholesale retailer will “be transparent on how we plan to do this if and when we receive any refunds.”
Costco was one of more than 2,000 companies that filed lawsuits seeking to recoup costs from tariffs paid under the International Emergency Economic Powers Act (IEEPA), which were struck down by the Supreme Court.
The likelihood that Costco would receive a tariff refund increased this week after a federal judge affirmed that “all importers of record” would be entitled refunds for those tariffs.
However, with $175 billion at stake and the Trump administration expected to appeal the decision, experts caution that there’s likely to be more legal hurdles ahead.
“It is not yet clear what the process will be, what refunds, if any, will be received and when this will happen,” Vachris said. He alluded to this complexity, stating that the layered and changing tariff rates made it challenging to track the impact on individual items.
He did note, however, that “in many cases, we didn’t pass the full cost on to our members.”
