USFIA - United States Fashion Industry Association

Inside U.S. Trade: Reacting to the threat of Section 301 tariffs

The U.S. Fashion Industry Association wants five minutes during a Section 301 Committee hearing next week to urge the administration “to reject calls to add apparel” to the list of products susceptible to tariffs on China imports should threatened levies be implemented.

Click here to read the entire article on the Inside U.S. Trade website.

Joint Industry Study Highlights Detrimental Economic Effects of Proposed China Section 301 Shipbuilding Actions

A group of more than 30 organizations representing a wide range of the ocean-going shipping supply chain today released “The Economic Effects of Proposed Action in the Section 301 Investigation of China’s Maritime, Logistics, and Shipbuilding Policies and Practices.” Conducted by Trade Partnership Worldwide, LLC, the report examines the net economic impact of the Office of the U.S. Trade Representative’s proposed shipbuilding remedies intended to penalize ocean carriers that use Chinese-built ships.

The report was released in advance of USTR’s hearing on “Proposed Action in Section 301 Investigation of China’s Targeting of the Maritime, Logistics, and Shipbuilding Sectors for Dominance” being held next week to help guide discussions about how to best assist the U.S. shipbuilding industry that will take place there.

Key findings from the study include:

The proposed remedies would negatively impact the U.S. economy, reducing output and likely worsening the trade deficit.
While the U.S. shipbuilding industry might benefit, other sectors like farming, manufacturing and retail would suffer significantly.
U.S. agriculture exporters and workers would be hit hard, with major crop exports dropping dramatically, losing competitiveness to countries like Brazil, Canada, Russia and Australia.
Energy exports and goods from various manufacturing industries would decline due to higher shipping costs and reduced trade.
U.S. ports and related sectors would face negative impacts on output and employment.
The negative effects would ripple through supply chains, affecting manufacturers, importers, retailers and other stakeholders like wholesale and retail trade, hospitality and consumer services industries.

Notably, the report concludes “a comprehensive assessment of the various remedies suggested by USTR finds that in every case they would result in net losses for the U.S. economy, U.S. trade, and most of the U.S. shipbuilding supply chain. The proposed remedies, individually and in aggregate, would reduce U.S. GDP and likely worsen the overall U.S. trade deficit.”

View the full report here. You can read USFIA's comments for the USTR hearing here.

Just Style: Should Mexico reconsider its new higher apparel tariffs?

Mexico increased its import duty on apparel products from 20-25% to 35% last month, however the US apparel sector is urging the country to pause the decision and an industry expert tells Just Style the hike could complicate its trade relationship with Asia.

Laura Husband | January 2, 2025

Measures designed to protect Mexico’s textile and apparel industries while addressing compliance challenges under the country’s IMMEX programme, which enables foreign companies to operate and manufacture in Mexico with low-tax structures and reduced-labour costs, took effect on 20 December 2024.

The decree, which was made by Mexico’s president Claudia Sheinbaumby means there is now a 10-15% increase on the import duty of 121 apparel products and 17 made-up textiles of Chapters 63 and 94, as well as a 10-15% increase on the import duty on 17 tariffs related to textiles.

As it stands the higher import duties will be in effect until 23 April next year (2026). ...

While United States Fashion Industry Association (USFIA) president Julie Hughes said shortly after Trump made his tariff threat against Mexico in November that “most brands and retailers are responding cautiously and will continue to review their strategies for dealing with uncertainty and maintaining agility in the supply chain”.

Just Style: Trump’s alleged key import tariff plan signals uncertainty for apparel

The US apparel industry should prepare for uncertainty as reports claim US President-elect Trump's advisors are considering a new tariff approach that might not include apparel.

January 7, 2025

US President-elect Donald Trump’s aides are said to be considering this new approach to tariffs, according to a report by The Washington Post, which cites three individuals familiar with the ongoing discussions.

Shortly after the publication of The Washington Post’s report Trump took to his Truth Social platform to denounce its coverage as erroneous and labelled it another instance of “Fake News.”

He wrote: “The story in the Washington Post, quoting so-called anonymous sources, which don’t exist, incorrectly states that my tariff policy will be pared back. That is wrong. The Washington Post knows it’s wrong. It’s just another example of Fake News.”

However, if the publication’s sources are to be believed a pared back tariff plan would mark a significant change for the apparel and fashion retail sectors from the stance Trump presented during his 2024 presidential campaign. ...

The United States Fashion Industry Association (USFIA)’s president, Julie Hughes agrees, stating: “We are in uncertain times during the transition to the new Trump Administration.”

She adds: “The contradictory messages about tariffs reflect the fact that no one knows for certain what policies will be enacted on Day One. No one likes uncertainty but it is the reality for at least the next few weeks.”...

Hughes hopes the new Administration will not target fashion and consumer products like apparel and footwear for additional tariffs.

She explains: “While the average duty on manufactured products is 2%, tariffs on clothing and footwear, including clothing for children and babies, can be as high as 32% for clothing and 65% for footwear. The elimination of these regressive taxes on American families — and the resulting lower prices — would be the best economic stimulus programme in recent history.”

Just Style: USMCA-compliant goods exempt from US import tariffs on Mexico, Canada

All USMCA-compliant goods, which includes textiles and apparel, will be exempt from the tariff hike imposed on Canada and Mexico for at least a month, according to Washington.

Hannah Abdulla | March 7, 2025

On 6 March, President Donald Trump signed an executive order which would see most goods imported from Mexico and some from Canada exempted from his trade tariff regime for four weeks.

The tariff suspension will cover about half of imports from Mexico and about 38% from Canada.

...

Julie Hughes, told Just Style the industry was suffering the effects of “tariff whiplash” – when tariffs are announced and then revised and maybe paused — which she said “sends a terrible message to the business community.”

“It undercuts confidence and the ability to plan, whether you make autos or computers or fashion. This action also ignores the fact that not all products with US inputs can meet the tough rules of origin for USMCA. We still are hurting apparel made with US cotton or US fabrics that use specialty yarns. We hope the Administration will see that tariffs are not the solution to every problem.”

Just-Style: New China tariffs will create supply chain "chaos"

By Beth Wright

The news has sparked "deep concern" among the US fashion industry and retailers who claim Trump's tariff action is cruel to American interests - particularly since companies are only given one week's notice ahead of the 10% tariff enforcement - and will create "chaos" for the fashion industry's supply chains.

In a statement, the United States Fashion Industry Association (USFIA) said it "strongly opposes" the tariff action which, in addition to amounting to a tax on consumers, will add considerable disruption to the supply chain.

Click here to read the entire article on the Just-Style website.

Just-Style: Testimony Takeaways - How New China Tariffs Could Hit U.S. Apparel Trade

By Leonie Barrie

The fear of the imminent rise in new tariffs on virtually all U.S. imports from China – including textiles, apparel and footwear – seems to have abated for now. But what’s potentially at stake was set out by dozens of executives from apparel and footwear brands, retailers and importers who took part in a series of recent hearings in Washington. Here’s what they had to say.

While the 301 tariffs might result in trade diversion from China, it will not lead to more sourcing in the United States. We often hear that argument that uncertainty and disruption to global supply chains will lead to more jobs here in the U.S., as manufacturers return from overseas. That’s not the case for the fashion industry. The manufacturing capacity and the workers are not in the United States. – Julia Hughes, president of the United States Fashion Industry Association (USFIA)

Click here to read the full article.

Just-Style: Trump ramps up the trade war with new China tariffs

By Leonie Barrie

The impact of the tariff uncertainty is prompting U.S. fashion sourcing executives to move production out of China in response.

A recent survey published by the United States Fashion Industry Association (USFIA) found 83% of respondents expect to decrease sourcing from China over the next two years.

Click here to read the full article on Just-Style’s website.

Just-Style: US clothing industry reeling over Trump's tariffs

By Michelle Russell

The move, however, has left the US fashion industry reeling. In a statement, the United States Fashion Industry Association (USFIA) said that while the tariffs aren't as high as those on the fashion industry--which can reach 32% on some products--they will be "catastrophic" for the US economy and jobs.

Click here to read the entire article on the just-style website.

Just-Style: US fashion sector mulls tactics to tackle Trump's tariffs

By Keith Nuthall

A trade symposium staged last week by the United States Fashion Industry Association (USFIA) united clothing sector executives, compliance chiefs, customs specialists, and government affairs managers.

It was, USFIA president Julia Hughes told just-style, "an important time for industry executives to meet in Washington DC and hear directly from Congress and administration officials."

Click here to read the entire article on the just-style website.

Marketplace: Americans are paying tariffs. Period.

USFIA President Julia Hughes joins Marketplace for a discussion on the effects of the trade war on consumers.

Click here to listen to the full interview.

Marketplace: The next round of tariffs will hit the U.S. fashion industry

By Kai Ryssdal

The Trump administration will impose tariffs on $200 billion worth of Chinese products starting next week as President Donald Trump first threatened in June. Hundreds of people have testified and submitted written comments about the impact of the proposed tariffs on U.S. industries, including Julia Hughes, president of the United States Fashion Industry Association. Now that the White House is moving forward on its proposal, Marketplace host Kai Ryssdal got Hughes back on the phone to check in.

Click here to listen to or read the entire interview on the Marketplace website.

New PIIE Report: No trade tax is free: Trump’s promised tariffs will hit large flows of electronics, machinery, autos, and chemicals

Last week, the Peterson Institute for International Economics released an analysis of which industries will be hardest hit by Trump’s proposed tariffs using current trade flows and tariff rates. For the purposes of this analysis, Julieta Contreras, Mary Lovely, and Jing Yan used the proposed 10% tariffs on all imports and 60% tariffs on Chinese imports. According to their analysis, tariff rates on textiles and clothing would increase by 40.2% if they are imported from China, 8.3% if imported from FTA partners, and 23.8% if Trump levies a 25% tariff on imports from Canada and Mexico. Textile and clothing imports from non-FTA partners would not be affected in this analysis, because they are already higher than 10%.

You can see the figures from the analysis below:

2024 12 11 lovely contreras yan tariffs fig1

2024 12 11 lovely contreras yan tariffs fig2

2024 12 11 lovely contreras yan tariffs fig3

2024 12 11 lovely contreras yan tariffs fig4

New York Times Magazine: Can Vietnam Avoid Getting Hurt in the Crossfire When the Tariffs Are Flying?

By Brook Larmer

To offset the conflict’s negative impact, Beijing has slashed tariffs to Asian countries, a reminder, it seems, that China will remain the lone superpower in Asia long after the trade war is over. This appeal, however, may not stop the flow of manufacturers out of China to Southeast Asia. The American shoe-and-accessory maker Steve Madden, for example, is shifting its handbag production from China to Cambodia — 15 percent this year, 30 percent in 2019. (A U.S. Fashion Industry Association study released in July showed that two-thirds of all textile companies are expected to lower production in China over the next two years, citing United States trade protectionism as the top challenge.) Moving production to a new location is expensive and complicated. Given the mercurial man behind the trade war, and the chaotic churn of American politics, some executives are holding fast in hopes that it will all go away. But as new tariffs loom for another $200 billion worth of Chinese imports, with 6,031 products on its target list, the trade war no longer looks like a short-term crisis.

Click here to read the entire article on the New York Times website.

PIIE: Trump’s threatened tariffs projected to damage economies of US, Canada, Mexico, and China

Warwick McKibbin and Marcus Noland from the Peterson Institute for International Economics have published an analysis on Trump’s tariff threats “over illegal immigration and the flow of drugs.” They find that the tariffs would damage all of the economies involved, but include the caveat that “history suggests that Trump may not act on his threats.” The authors conclude that renegotiating USMCA would be preferable to the fallout from Trump’s tariff threats, though the “political uncertainty tempers hope of finding a resolution.” The potential of the threatened tariffs against China coming to fruition are higher, given Trump’s actions during his first term.

Below we share the projected tariff scenarios.

Figure 1 shows that the imposition of the tariff would slow growth and accelerate inflation in all three countries.

PIIE1 GDP

PIIE1 Inflation

Figure 2 shows the damage that an additional 10 percent tariff could inflict on the Chinese and US economies… [and] the results of a retaliation scenario (dotted lines).

PIIE2 GDP

PIIE2 Inflation

The result of combining the threats—a 25 percent tariff on Canada and Mexico and an additional 10 percent tariff on China (which retaliates)—is shown in figure 3.

PIIE3 GDP

PIIE3 Inflation

POLITICO: U.S. textile producers, importers square off over China tariffs

By Doug Palmer

"Tariffs on clothing, footwear and other fashion products would constitute a huge, regressive tax increase," Julia Hughes, president of the United States Fashion Industry Association, told the panel. "For many of these products, China remains the No. 1 supplier in the world, with no realistic options for other sourcing destinations that could replace China."...

But the fashion sector argues that it supports "higher-paying" jobs in areas such as design, product development, logistics, sourcing and services even if major cutting and sewing operations have mainly moved outside the United States.

"Retail operations alone support 42 million jobs — or 1 in 4 American jobs," Hughes said.

Click here to read the entire article on the Politico Pro website.

PPI Trade Fact of the Week: Canada, Mexico, and China are the U.S.’ three largest trading partners

Ed Gresser, PPI’s Vice President and Director for Trade and Global Markets, published his trade fact of the week and he uses Maine to illustrate how much damage the IEEPA tariffs can cause.

Susan Collins (R-Maine) thinks of Maine businesses and (noting this week’s Arctic-level Lewiston thermometer readings) fears a sudden spike in home heating bills:

“The Maine economy is integrated with Canada, our most important trading partner. Certain tariffs will impose a significant burden on many families, manufacturers, the forest products industry, small businesses, lobstermen, and agricultural producers. For example, 95 percent of the heating oil used by most Mainers to heat their homes comes from refineries in Canada.”

To put a number on this, Maine bought $2.73 billion worth of fuel oil, mostly for heating oil from Canada last year, so Mr. Trump’s midwinter 10% energy tariff would have hit the state’s 590,000 households with a new $270 million bill. …

What then are the Senators’ options? Their concern about rising costs for farmers and lobster boat captains, cold homes, threats to jobs, and stretched family budgets is actually linked very closely to the first principle of response — defend the Constitution and oppose attempts to rule by decree. The Constitution’s tariff clause is not at all blurry: “Congress shall have the Power to lay and collect Taxes, Duties, Imposts, and Excises.” So Republican Senators and Representatives have no need to plead for special carveouts and exemptions. They have all the power they need to keep potash and heating oil prices down, and to preserve Congress’ constitutional authority from Mr. Trump’s power grab, by voting. They just need to use it.

PPI Trade Fact of the Week: Trump tariffs more likely to shrink than enlarge U.S. manufacturing industry

Ed Gresser, PPI’s Vice President and Director for Trade and Global Markets, published his trade fact of the week to show how the IEEPA tariffs may be intended to support U.S. manufacturing, but actually the tariffs are more likely to hurt manufacturers.

Imports of business inputs – “intermediate goods” like chemicals and metals, raw materials like energy and metal ores, and capital goods such as power equipment — are substantially larger than imports of consumer goods. So the Trump tariffs are likely to raise U.S. production costs even more than they raise mall and grocery prices. …

With this in mind, some specially protected “manufacturing sectors” might gain. But U.S. manufacturing in general will have higher costs and probably get relatively smaller. The earlier round of Trump tariffs provides some guidance here: per a 2023 U.S. International Trade Commission study, the 2018 steel and aluminum tariffs over three years raised the two metals’ output by $2.2 billion, but simultaneously shrank the U.S. auto parts, machinery, toolmaking and other metal-using industries by $3.5 billion. On a larger scale, since the metals and “301” tariffs on Chinese goods in 2018/2019, manufacturing has fallen from 10.9% to 9.9% of U.S. GDP. Real manufacturing output growth and employment totals, meanwhile, have slowed from the annual $40 billion and 100,000 net jobs averages of the post-financial crisis Obama years to $30 billion and 30,000.

PPI Trade Fact of the Week: U.S. clothing tariffs are unfair to women

PPI’s Ed Gresser, Vice President and Director for Trade and Global Markets, once again highlights how import tariffs unfairly target women’s clothing in his latest trade fact of the week. Building on his Valetines Day trade fact covering higher tariffs for women’s underwear, Gresser’s latest piece looks at women’s and men’s clothing overall, finding that “combining all the categories, tariff rates on women’s clothing are on average 16.7%, 2.9 percentage points higher than the 13.6% average for men’s.”

Gresser also notes that FTAs don’t help much and may even amplify the issue with restrictive and complex rules of origin. The New Democrat Coalition in the House published an eight-point trade policy plan which includes the goal to “advance equity in trade policy by considering solutions to reduce gender bias and regressivity in the tariff system.”

Gresser writes that the findings point to systemic problems with U.S. tariffs for clothing:

What does this all mean in practice? Last year’s tariff payments totaled $4.7 billion on $31.1 billion worth of women’s clothes, and $3.1 billion for $24.2 billion worth of men’s clothes. Or, in more direct terms, markups and U.S. transport and overhead costs mean that the cost of an average shirt or coat roughly quadruples from arrival at the border to the cashier, the tariff system appears to be raising the price women pay for clothes, relative to men, by an average of an extra dollar per garment. Looking at this another way, a 2018 working paper from the U.S International Trade Commission concluded that the higher rates on women’s clothes — their finding, pre-“301” tariff, was 14.9% for women’s clothes and 12.0% for men’s — plus the fact that women on average tend to purchase more clothing than men, meant that buyers of women clothes shouldered an additional $2.77 billion in tariff burden than buyers of men’s clothes. Gender bias in the tariff system accounted for about $1.8 billion extra burden on buyers of women’s clothing as of 2015, and presumably somewhat more now.

PPI: Brace yourself: Trump’s trade war is about to make Americans poorer

Writing in an op-ed for The Hill, PPI Founder and President Will Marshall highlights the problems with President Trump’s use of tariffs to attempt a restructuring of the world’s economy.

The president can sign all the executive orders he pleases, but he can’t throw history into reverse or repeal basic economics.

Marshall points out that Americans “aren’t buying MAGAnomics.”

Consumer confidence has plummeted to a 12-year low, with families cutting back on spending in anticipation of a return to high living costs.

Investors are rattled too. By mid-March, the stock market had lost more than $3 trillion since Trump took office — the equivalent of 10 percent of America’s $30 trillion GDP.

In a recent YouGov poll, 61 percent of voters said tariffs hurt average working people, while just 14 percent said they would help.

And takes on Trump’s attempt to return manufacturing jobs to America.

The president apparently sees tariffs as a form of reparations for working Americans. But the culprit isn’t trade or globalization or “neoliberalism.” It’s the emergence of a post-industrial economy shaped mainly by technological change, rising education levels and growing demand for services.

Factory employment has declined in all advanced countries, even manufacturing powerhouses like Germany and Japan. But thanks to tech-driven productivity gains, U.S. manufacturing output has increased by more than 60 percent since 1999, even as our factory workforce has contracted by about 25 percent.

The U.S., like most other high-income countries, has evolved into a predominantly service-based economy. Services account for 80 percent of non-farm jobs. Even if more factories sprout up here, job gains are likely to be modest due to automation.

In fact, since Trump’s first set of tariffs, manufacturing employment has stagnated, up by only 30,000 since 2018, compared to 400,000 in the second Obama term.

And with over half a million manufacturing jobs open over the last five years, blue-collar workers themselves appear ambivalent about factory careers.

A 2023 YouGov poll commissioned by the Progressive Policy Institute asked non-college workers where they think their children will find the best jobs and careers. Most (44 percent) choose the communications and digital economy, while just 13 percent picked manufacturing.