On March 19, 2026, Brandon Lord, the Executive Director of U.S. Customs and Border Protection, filed a status update with the U.S. Court of International Trade (“CIT”) outlining CBP’s progress in developing a new Automated Commercial Environment (“ACE”) functionality intended to support refunds of tariffs that were imposed under the International Emergency Economic Powers Act (“IEEPA”).
CBP is continuing to develop functionality known as Consolidated Administration and Processing of Entries (“CAPE”), to calculate and issue valid IEEPA tariff refunds. CBP is designing CAPE with four (4) integrated components: (i) Claim Portal; (ii) Mass Processing; (iii) Review and Liquidation/Reliquidation; and (iv) Refund.
According to the March 19 court filing, CBP estimates that development of the “Claim Portal” is 73% complete, and testing of substantially developed capabilities is already underway. The “Mass Processing” component is 45% complete, with testing expected to begin within the next week. Development of the “Review and Liquidation/Reliquidation” component is approximately 80% complete, and testing is already underway. Finally, the “Refund” component, which is intended to process and issue refunds through ACE, is 63% complete. CBP also indicated that testing of refund consolidation functionality has begun and that additional development and testing to support this functionality will continue.
The CIT issued an additional order continuing the stay and setting another hearing to discuss further progress on March 31, 2026. In its order, the CIT included the IEEPA tariffs on Brazil and India as being included in the March 4th, March 6th, and March 12th orders; continued the stay of the March 4th order, and alerted the importing community that the CIT will order CBP to reliquidate any unliquidated entries and liquidated entries which are not yet final (i.e. those entries which have not yet reached 90 days after the date of liquidation). What this means is for those entries with a liquidation date beyond 90 days and approaching the 180-day protest deadline pursuant to 19 U.S.C. §1514(a), protests may be a viable route. While the CIT does not explicitly state that protests may be a viable option, it is warning the importing community to closely monitor and avail itself of both administrative and litigation remedies available.
Husch Blackwell’s International Trade and Supply Chain team will continue to monitor and provide updates as they become available.