The Supreme Court ruled last week that President Trump exceeded his authority when he imposed sweeping tariffs on nearly every country last April.
The decision came as a surprise to Liz Eldridge, owner of The Spice and Tea Exchange in South Anchorage.
“I was pleasantly shocked,” she said.
The store sells teas, sugars and spices imported from dozens of countries. The reciprocal tariffs applied to almost everything she sells and forced her to switch suppliers for some products.
Eldridge was part of a trio of local entrepreneurs Alaska Public Media spoke with when Trump’s so-called “Liberation Day” tariffs were announced last April. Almost a year later, those same business owners say it was a complicated and expensive process that took a huge toll on their companies.
Businesses are expressing some relief now that the Supreme Court ruled those tariffs are illegal, but skeptical they’ll ever see a refund for the tens of thousands of dollars they paid for tariffs.
Eldridge said she’s not counting on one, and she’s not planning to pursue litigation either.
“We'd be like an ant on an ant hill,” Eldridge said. “There's millions of us, and we'd just be lost in the shuffle. I feel like I would be wasting my time for money I probably wouldn't get back.”
Paxson Woelber feels similarly. He owns Ermine Skate, an Anchorage company that makes the only Nordic skate on the market manufactured in the United States.
Ermine partners with manufacturers in Southcentral for the skate’s machining and ceramic coating, but the company also imports safety gear from Scandinavian countries – which Woelber said has been the biggest tariff impact for his business.
“I have no reason to actually think that I'm going to get it back right now, or on what timeline,” Woelber said. “I mean, is Ermine Skate, a little tiny Nordic skate making company in Alaska, going to be first in line to receive refunds on their unconstitutional tariff charges?”
There’s not a clear path to obtaining tariff refunds, according to the U.S. Chamber of Commerce, even for large companies.
Woelber declined to say how much the company has spent on tariffs in the last year, but said it’s “a significant five figure number” that forced the company to raise prices by about 15%.
If the company gets a refund, Woelber said he would reinvest the money into the business by stocking up on products and upgrading machinery. He has wondered if getting that money back would allow him to refund customers or lower prices, but said he can’t plan that far ahead.
“The amount of uncertainty in the system and the fact that I just have no idea if I'm even going to ever see a refund makes it really, really difficult to even think about doing that kind of thing,” Woelber said.
Uncertainty is a feeling Eric Parsons has gotten used to over the last year. Parsons owns Revelate Designs, an Alaska-based bikepacking gear company. The company moved its manufacturing out of China last spring because of trade conditions.
The company, he said, has paid about $35,000 in reciprocal tariffs since they were implemented about a year ago. Parsons said the turmoil has put the company in a conservative spending mindset, and has taken an extreme psychological toll.
“Above all, it feels like an assault on small business and innovation,” he said.
During his State of the Union Address Tuesday, Trump said tariffs could replace income tax. The president also said tariffs are paid by foreign countries, but that’s not true: They’re largely being paid by American families and businesses.
Parsons said Revelate isn't in the financial position to hire an attorney to stand up to the federal government, and other small businesses are in the same boat. He signed a letter in support of issuing business’ refunds.
Even if Parsons were to get his tens of thousands of dollars spent on tariffs back, he said that doesn’t put an end to the uncertainty. On Tuesday, Trump implemented a new 10% global tariff and the administration is trying to push it to 15%.
“Maybe we'll get refunds,” he said, “but the President still wants to use tariffs as a controlling way for his foreign policy. He's going to do that one way or the other, and so there's still going to be chaos and unpredictability.”
