In New Glarus the Swiss shop holds on, but the shelves are emptying

New Glarus, Wisconsin, has 2,300 inhabitants and was founded in 1845 by emigrants from Glarus. The houses are built in chalet style, the Swiss Volksfest is celebrated every year, and the town lives in good part off the appeal of its origins. It is here that Jacqueline Judd, a trained cook who came from Switzerland in 2007 to work in a restaurant, opened her own business.

The path was a long one. After the kitchen she worked at a dog shelter, ending up running it, then in a souvenir shop. In 2025 she took over the Schwizerlädeli, the Swiss goods shop previously run by Esther Zgraggen, and as her first change she wanted to reopen a physical space. The shop is now called Jackie's Imports.

The range is what you would expect, and a little more: wooden cows and bells, shirts with edelweiss, fondue and raclette equipment, dirndls and alpine clothing, and the soaps of the Swiss Frau, made by a farmer with Swiss roots. The customers are American tourists and Swiss of several generations, who also buy online from other states.

Then came the tariffs

A few months after the handover, the tariffs introduced by the American administration changed the terms of the work. "In September and October my suppliers in Switzerland sent almost nothing at all," Judd recounts. "It was brutal."

The problem was not only the price. Shipping remained possible almost solely through couriers such as FedEx, with costs tripled and much longer delivery times. By the end of the year the stockroom was empty.

It is the kind of consequence foreign trade statistics do not record. A business of that size has no margin to absorb a rise in transport costs, cannot change supplier without ceasing to sell the very thing it exists for, and does not hold enough stock to wait until the situation clears.

Judd does not intend to close. She says she is not giving up yet and expects to pay herself a salary during the current year. She keeps her ties to the local Swiss community through informal meetings in German and by taking part in the town's events. Whether she will stay in the United States for good she does not know; she does acknowledge, though, that it is there that she was able to build what she has, from the dog to the family to the business.