General Motors announced Tuesday it expects a $500 million refund from tariffs the U.S. Supreme Court struck down as unconstitutional — news that carries direct weight for Upstate South Carolina, where BMW Manufacturing stands as the nation’s largest automotive exporter by value.
GM disclosed the refund expectation alongside its first-quarter earnings. CEO Mary Barra told shareholders the company is raising its full-year profit forecast by $500 million, now projecting earnings before interest and taxes of $13.5 billion to $15.5 billion for 2026. Total tariff costs for the year are expected at $2.5 billion to $3.5 billion, down from an earlier estimate of $3 billion to $4 billion; GM’s tariff bill for 2025 ran to roughly $3.1 billion.
The refunds trace to a February 2026 Supreme Court ruling that President Trump’s use of the International Emergency Economic Powers Act — IEEPA — did not legally authorize his tariff orders. The Court of International Trade directed Customs and Border Protection to begin recalculating duties and issuing refunds. CBP opened an online portal last week; approved refunds will take 60 to 90 days to issue and will be handled in phases. More than 330,000 importers paid roughly $166 billion in IEEPA tariffs across more than 53 million shipments. GM has not yet received its refund and said timing is uncertain.
BMW Manufacturing’s Spartanburg plant — the largest BMW facility in the world — assembled 412,799 vehicles in 2025 and exported roughly 200,000 X3, X5, and X7 models to nearly 120 countries, a $9 billion export value that kept BMW atop U.S. automotive rankings for an eleventh consecutive year. About 70 percent of those vehicles move through the Port of Charleston via Inland Port Greer, a Norfolk Southern rail hub three miles from the Spartanburg assembly line. Under IEEPA, BMW paid a broad tariff on European-sourced components, a 25 percent levy on foreign auto parts, and a 50 percent charge on imported steel and aluminum — a layered burden on a plant that both imports parts and ships finished SUVs worldwide. Michelin, headquartered in Greenville, and suppliers along the I-85 corridor faced the same tariff environment.
