Section 301 Tariffs Face a Class Action Covering Every US Importer

A spice importer and a watch retailer filed suit in the US Court of International Trade on July 24, one day after the new Section 301 tariffs took effect, seeking to have them struck down and the duties refunded.

The detail that has gone largely unreported is that Burlap and Barrel v. Greer is a putative class action. The proposed class is every importer of record that has paid, or will pay, duties under the Section 301 Action on merchandise entered for consumption on or after July 24, 2026.

Given that the tariffs cover economies accounting for 99.4% of US imports by value, that class is close to every importer in the country.

What the action actually covers

USTR describes the action as covering 60 economies. The complaint points out that this figure comprises 57 sovereign countries, Taiwan, Hong Kong and the European Union treated as one — so in practice at least 84 sovereign states.

The rate structure is less uniform than the headline suggests:

• 10% on products of 17 economies
• For the EU and Taiwan, a rate calibrated so that MFN duty plus Section 301 duty totals 10%
• For Japan, Korea and Switzerland, calibrated so the combined total reaches 12.5%
• 12.5% on everything else covered
• Product exclusions in Annexes I and II, plus textile tariff-rate quotas to be established for Bangladesh, Cambodia, Indonesia and Malaysia

There was a narrow in-transit carve-out. Goods loaded onto a vessel and in transit on the final mode before 12:01 a.m. Eastern on July 24, and entered for consumption before 12:01 a.m. Eastern on July 28, escaped the duty. That window closed three weeks ago.

The argument

The complaint runs three counts, and the sequencing of the last eighteen months is the spine of all three.

In February the Supreme Court held in Learning Resources v. Trump that IEEPA does not confer tariff authority, invalidating the Liberation Day regime. The same day, the administration announced replacement tariffs under Section 122 — capped by statute at 150 days. The Court of International Trade found those unlawful in May; that ruling is on appeal at the Federal Circuit.

USTR opened the forced labour investigation on March 12, made determinations on June 2, ran a comment period to July 6 and a three-day hearing, and issued final determinations on July 23 — 133 days after initiation, and one day before the Section 122 authority lapsed.

The plaintiffs' first count is that Section 301 is a targeted, practice-specific remedy: USTR must identify a particular foreign act or practice, find it burdens US commerce, and direct the response at eliminating that practice. Near-uniform duties on substantially all goods from substantially all trading partners, they argue, is a general import tax the statute does not authorise.

The second count is that the action is arbitrary and capricious — that USTR gave no reasoned, record-based explanation for applying the same two rates to 60 economies with materially different enforcement records, and did not consider narrower alternatives aimed at particular goods or supply chains.

The third is a nondelegation argument in the alternative: if Section 301 does authorise this, it supplies no intelligible principle limiting the tariff power Congress holds under Article I.

For the pretext claim the complaint leans on the government's own words. Treasury Secretary Scott Bessent said publicly that revenue would be "virtually unchanged" after the Supreme Court ruling and that rates would return to where they had been. The plaintiffs pair that with the fact that the President directed the rates before USTR implemented them, and argue the rates were set first and the country findings assembled afterwards.

They also note a timing comparison: USTR's 2017–18 Section 301 investigation into a single economy, China, took more than seven months. This one covered 60 in under three.

The scale of the individual harm

The two plaintiffs are small. Burlap and Barrel imports single-origin spices from 22 countries and has five shipments arriving at New York/New Jersey and Baltimore valued at about $124,407, carrying roughly $13,888 in Section 301 duty. Collective Horology, which retails independent watches, has three shipments worth about $69,000 carrying roughly $8,280.

Those are not headline numbers, and that is the point. Both argue no domestic substitute exists for what they import — Turkish chillies, Tanzanian sea salt, watches from individual Swiss and Danish workshops — so neither can source around the duty.

What it means for forwarders

Liquidation is the deadline nobody is talking about. The complaint specifically asks the court to enjoin collection including through liquidation of entries. That clause is there for a reason: once an entry liquidates and the period to challenge it runs, recovering duties on it becomes materially harder regardless of how the case ends. Any client paying Section 301 duty on entries from July 24 onward has a clock running that is independent of the litigation calendar. This is a question for their customs counsel, and it is worth raising now rather than when a ruling lands.

Class membership is not the same as a refund. The class is defined by having paid the duty, but the court has not certified it, and no importer should assume a filing on their behalf preserves anything automatically. What is within your control is records: entry numbers, duty paid by HTS line, and clean segregation of Section 301 amounts from MFN and other duties. Clients who cannot evidence what they paid will struggle whatever the outcome.

Three separate cases are now running on the same question. The IEEPA challenge is decided. The Section 122 appeal is live at the Federal Circuit. This is the third instrument in eighteen months, and the same firm — the Liberty Justice Center — has litigated all three. Whatever happens here, the pattern suggests the next authority gets challenged too.

Watch the second investigation. USTR is separately investigating structural excess capacity in manufacturing across 16 of the same economies. If that produces action, duties layer on top of these. For anyone modelling landed cost into 2027, that is the risk with the widest range of outcomes.

This is a report on a filed complaint, not legal advice. Nothing in it should substitute for your own customs counsel.