If tariffs are canceled, will prices go back down?

(NEXSTAR) – The Supreme Court's stunning decision to strike down the bulk of President Donald Trump's tariffs was taken as good news for some and bad news for others, depending on whom you asked. But what about for the everyday American?

The tariffs have been cited as a driving force behind inflation and the rising prices of everything from groceries to clothing and cars. If the tariffs are thrown out, does that mean we'll see prices start to plummet?

It's very not likely, economists say. The economic principle of "sticky prices" is at play here, NPR reports.

Put simply, "stickiness" refers to how prices can respond slowly to changes in the broader economy. Sellers may be reluctant to change the price of a good even when there's a change in demand for the product or the cost of making it, Investopedia explains.

Even if tariffs are rolled back, companies may be hesitant to lower prices immediately as the future remains uncertain. Some businesses may still be trying to catch up with the rising costs they've been paying.

"They haven't been able to pass it through completely yet, waiting to see what would happen," Mary Lovely, a senior fellow at the Peterson Institute for International Economics, told NPR in an interview. "So they're going to be highly reluctant to roll back when they're still in the process of catching up."

Plus, if people are willing to pay the higher prices, businesses may not have an incentive to lower prices at all.

Nexstar contacted seven large companies that had announced tariff-driven prices increases last year to see if they would be rolling back any of the changes. None of the companies, which included Nike, Best Buy, Ferrari and others, responded by publication time.

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The Trump administration has also vowed it's not giving up on tariffs just yet. The president said on social media after the ruling that he had signed an executive order enabling him to bypass Congress and impose a 10% tax on imports from around the world. He later bumped it up to 15%.

The 15% tariffs are legally capped at 150 days, but Trump brushed off a question about the limit by saying "we have a right to do pretty much what we want to do.”

If the administration continues pursuing a policy of tariffs through different laws and loopholes, consumers will effectively keep paying more.

"For a consumer, it doesn't really matter what authority that the president calls on to impose the tariff," Carola Binder, professor of economics at the The University of Texas at Austin School of Civic Leadership, told NPR. "Some particular tariffs might go down. And so that would mean that prices of particular goods could go down, but the overall level would remain pretty high."

Will tariffs already paid in 2025 be refunded to consumers?

There's also the question of what will happen to the tariffs already paid by U.S. consumers since the Trump administration's policies took place. More than 1,000 companies have filed suit in the U.S. Court of International Trade in efforts to recoup the costs of illegal tariffs. Those companies include Costco and Revlon.

Delivery company FedEx said in a statement on Thursday that it will return any tariff refund it might get to shippers and customers who paid them.

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“If refunds are issued to FedEx, we will issue refunds to the shippers and consumers who originally bore those charges,” FedEx said in a statement on Thursday. “When that will happen and the exact process for requesting and issuing refunds will depend in part on future guidance from the government and the court.”

Senate Democrats are also demanding Customs and Border Patrol begin launching a refund process "immediately."

The Associated Press contributed to this report.