Nintendo Sues U.S. to Recover Trump-Era Tariffs as Refund Fight Hits a Bottleneck

Overview

• Nintendo of America filed its complaint on March 6 in the U.S. Court of International Trade seeking full reimbursement of import tariffs plus interest, naming Treasury, Homeland Security, the U.S. Trade Representative, Customs and Border Protection, and Commerce as defendants along with senior officials.
• Nintendo joins a coordinated group of more than 1,000 companies pursuing nearly $200 billion in tariff refunds.
• The claims rest on a recent U.S. Supreme Court ruling that the president could not invoke the International Emergency Economic Powers Act to impose the duties and a March 4 order by Judge Richard Eaton affirming companies’ refund rights.
• U.S. Customs and Border Protection has told the court it cannot immediately process repayments, with a system potentially operational in about 45 days, according to reports.
• The 2025 tariffs—sometimes called Liberation Day tariffs—reached rates above 25% and exceeded 100% on some China-targeted lines, disrupting Nintendo’s Asia-based manufacturing and prompting it to delay Switch 2 preorders last year.