Washington DC - A Customs and Border Protection official told a federal court Friday that the agency lacked the capability to immediately refund a swath of President Donald Trump's tariffs.

Instead, the agency is developing a process to do so, to be ready for use in more than a month's time, said Brandon Lord, executive director of trade programs at CBP in a court filing.

His comments came after a federal judge this week ordered the Trump administration to take initial steps towards issuing refunds. The court's decision was welcomed by businesses, as hundreds of them had sued to recover tariffs paid.

Politicians Pam Bondi gets subpoenaed to testify before House Oversight Committee for mishandling Epstein files

While the full scope of the directive was not instantly clear, trade lawyers said the ruling could apply to almost all imports where the now-illegal duties were paid.

Last month, the Supreme Court ruled that Trump had exceeded his authority in imposing various country-wide tariffs, opening the door to refunds.

In his filing, Lord said that more than 330,000 importers had made over 53 million entries where they deposited or paid duties that have since been struck down.

These tariffs, imposed under the International Emergency Economic Powers Act, collected approximately $166 billion in duties and estimated duty deposits as of Wednesday, when the order was first issued.

Around 20.1 million entries were yet to be finalized as of Wednesday.

But Lord said CBP cannot immediately prevent such payments from being finalized without IEEPA tariffs – partially because the process is automatic and there is no easy way to halt it selectively.

Customs is also "facing an unprecedented volume of refunds," his filing added.

"Its existing administrative procedures and technology are not well suited to a task of this scale and will require manual work," the document added.

In his order this week, Judge Richard Eaton of the US Court of International Trade told CBP to stop calculating the tariffs ruled illegal for imports where payments have yet to be fully finalized.

Politicians Nida Allam sends warning to Democratic Party after conceding North Carolina congressional primary

A coalition of US small businesses, We Pay the Tariffs, swiftly cheered the initial directive for tariff refunds.

It said: "A full, fast, and automatic refund process is what these businesses are owed and anything less is unacceptable."