Denise Attwood: Tariff refunds must come quickly

By Denise Attwood

For more than 40 years, my husband and I have built a business around a simple belief: that the products Americans buy can help sustain livelihoods halfway around the world. Our Spokane-based company, Ganesh Himal Trading, works with small artisan groups in Nepal – many of them women and refugees – to bring their handmade goods to independent stores across the United States and Canada.

That work has never been easy. Nepal has faced political upheaval, earthquakes and economic uncertainty over the years. Yet the biggest obstacle our business is facing today isn’t happening in Nepal. It’s happening here at home.

Over the past year, tariffs on imported goods have placed a heavy burden on small businesses like ours. Since May 2025, we have paid almost $30,000 in additional duties on shipments from Nepal. For a company with average yearly wholesale sales of about $1 million, that kind of unexpected cost is enormous. And the impact stretches far beyond our warehouse in Spokane.

Our company works with small cottage industries and development projects throughout Nepal, helping artisans gain fair access to international markets. The products we import – textiles, felted goods, and traditional handicrafts – reflect generations of skill and cultural heritage. Today, we supply approximately 400 small locally owned retailers across the U.S. and Canada with beautiful and fairly traded Nepali goods.

When tariffs suddenly increased our costs, the ripple effects were immediate. Higher duties made it harder for us to purchase goods from the producer groups we work with. That means fewer orders placed with artisans who depend on this income to support their families.

We’ve tried to shield our customers from these increases. Many of the stores we sell to are small, owner-operated shops that are still recovering from the economic disruption of the pandemic. Raising prices significantly would likely reduce their sales and ultimately reduce the amount we can purchase from Nepal.

So instead, we’ve absorbed the tariff burden ourselves. We’ve limited price increases to normal cost adjustments, kept our warehouse expenses low, and I have reduced my own hours to help offset the losses. But there is only so much a small business can absorb.

We had hoped to hire another employee as we grew. Those plans are now on hold because the uncertainty around tariffs makes long-term planning nearly impossible.

When the Supreme Court ruled that the president lacked authority to impose tariffs, it seemed like a step toward resolving this problem.

Recently, the United States Court of International Trade ruled that companies like ours should eventually receive refunds for tariffs we were forced to pay. But there is still enormous uncertainty about when that will happen.

For large corporations, waiting months or even years for refunds might be manageable. For small businesses, that delay matters. The money tied up in tariffs could be used to hire employees, expand sales and place larger orders with the artisans we work with in Nepal.

Running a small business always requires resilience. Over the past four decades, we’ve navigated natural disasters, political changes and economic downturns. Those are challenges that come with working internationally.

But tariffs illegally imposed, and the uncertainty surrounding them, create a different kind of obstacle. They disrupt long-standing partnerships and strain small businesses that operate on narrow margins.

The courts have now made clear that some of these tariffs were unlawful. The process of unwinding them has begun. What small businesses need now is clarity and timely action.

Because for companies like ours, these dollars don’t just affect a balance sheet. They determine whether we can continue supporting artisans in Nepal while sustaining small retailers and employees here in Spokane.

After more than 40 years of building those connections, we want the chance to keep doing the work we love, without unnecessary barriers standing in the way.

Denise Attwood co-founded Ganesh Himal Trading with her husband, Ric Conner, in 1984. She lives in Spokane.