Nintendo Joins Line of Companies Seeking Tariff Refunds From U.S.

By Yang Jie

Nintendo has joined the line of companies seeking refunds over tariffs collected by the U.S. over the past year, filing a formal complaint seeking to recover the funds.

The lawsuit centers on a series of executive orders issued by President Trump that invoked the International Emergency Economic Powers Act to impose sweeping duties on imports from nearly every U.S. trading partner.

Nintendo didn't say how much it had paid in tariffs, but that the measures resulted in what it called the "unlawful" collection of billions of dollars in levies.

The legal challenge filed March 6 in the U.S. Court of International Trade follows a Supreme Court ruling in February that struck down the bulk of Trump's tariffs.

On the day of the ruling, the administration issued an executive order terminating collection of those duties.

The trade measures enacted last year came at a bad time for the Japanese entertainment company, coinciding with the planned introduction of its Switch 2 game console in the U.S. Nintendo initially delayed preorders because of the uncertainty, before rolling out the console while redirecting production to countries like Vietnam to sidestep higher duties on China-made units.

The levies hit videogame companies hard as many source major components like screens and circuit boards from China, which was slapped with higher tariffs than other countries.

Companies have shifted production elsewhere to reduce tariff exposure, but those moves have been expensive and disruptive, leaving the industry grappling with higher costs and limited ability to pass them on to customers.

Others in the technology and manufacturing sectors have filed legal challenges over tariff refunds too, including Lenovo and Toyota.

Last week, a federal trade-court judge told the Trump administration to begin the process of returning the approximately $166 billion collected in voided tariffs. However, it remains unclear how that will happen and how long it will take.

Write to Yang Jie at jie.yang@wsj.com

(END) Dow Jones Newswires

March 10, 2026 03:36 ET (07:36 GMT)