Illinois governor demands 8.68 bln dollars tariff refunds from Trump

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Illinois governor demands 8.68 bln dollars tariff refunds from Trump

2026-02-22 18:06 Last Updated At：21:37

Illinois Governor JB Pritzker wrote a letter to U.S. President Donald Trump on Friday, demanding him refund the state 8.68 billion U.S. dollars after the U.S. Supreme Court ruled the president's sweeping tariffs illegal.

In the letter, Pritzker said on behalf of the residents of Illinois, he demanded a refund of 1,700 U.S. dollars for every family in the state. There are 5,105,448 households in Illinois.

Pritzker posted the related bill on social media and said "cut the check."

In a 6-3 ruling, the Supreme Court of the United States said that the tariff policies under the International Emergency Economic Powers Act (IEEPA) are unconstitutional, officially striking down the global tariffs Trump has introduced since April 2025.

The justices ruled that the president did not have the authority under IEEPA to impose import tariffs on goods from nearly all the U.S. trading partners.

ROK protests Japan's territorial claims to islets

The Republic of Korea (ROK) on Friday protested Japan's renewed territorial claims to the islets lying halfway between the two countries, called Dokdo by the ROK and Takeshima by Japan.

The foreign ministry said in a statement that the ROK government strongly protests Japan's reiteration of unjust territorial claims to Dokdo in the foreign policy speech, delivered by its foreign minister to the Diet.

The ministry called for an immediate withdrawal of such claims, making it clear that Japan's unjust claims will have no impact whatsoever on the ROK's sovereignty over Dokdo.

It reaffirmed that the ROK will firmly respond to any provocations by Japan, stressing that Japan should realize that the repeated unjust claims over Dokdo, which is clearly an integral part of the ROK's territory historically, geographically and under international law, will be in no way conducive to building a future-oriented relationship between Seoul and Tokyo.