USFIA - United States Fashion Industry Association

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 Age: Fewer US buyers take RMG from Bangladesh

On a 21 July deadline, New Age reports on changing sourcing trends as informed by USFIA's Bencharking Survey 2026:

Moinul Haque | July 21, 2026

Bangladesh’s utilisation rate among US fashion companies has sharply fallen in 2026, while slow speed-to-market, limited supply chain flexibility, and compliance concerns remain major challenges though the country stays one of the world’s leading apparel sourcing destinations.

According to the 2026 USFIA Benchmarking Study that covered until May, which was released on Monday, Bangladesh’s utilisation rate dropped to 78.9 per cent in 2026 from 88.2 per cent a year earlier.

Utilisation rate refers to the frequency with which a sourcing destination was used divided by the total number of survey respondents.

The report said that Bangladesh had tied with Vietnam, Cambodia, and Indonesia as the most-utilised apparel sourcing destination in 2026 based on the utilisation rate.

However, it said, utilisation rates among the major Asian sourcing destinations had declined compared to the 2025 survey.

China’s utilisation rate fell from 100 per cent to 73 per cent, while Vietnam’s dropped from 100 per cent to about 78 per cent.

The report, however, emphasised that the decline in Bangladesh’s utilisation rate should not be interpreted as a loss of competitiveness.

Instead, it said, the decline reflected a broader transformation in global sourcing strategies.

According to the report, US brands identified president Trump’s protectionist trade policies as their biggest business challenge in 2026, prompting companies to reduce their sourcing exposure to countries considered most vulnerable to future trade restrictions, particularly China and Vietnam.

Meanwhile, three non-Asian countries – Guatemala, Egypt, and Jordan – climbed to the top 10 sourcing destinations in 2026, with all of them recording higher utilisation rates than a year earlier.

According to the report, protectionist US trade policies and tariff-related uncertainties remained the fashion industry’s biggest business challenge in 2026, with 92 per cent of the surveyed companies identifying them as their primary concern.

It said that the average applied US tariff on apparel imports had increased to 21.6 per cent in May 2026 from 15.2 per cent before the start of President Donald Trump’s second term.

The report also found that China and Vietnam were perceived to face the highest risk from future US import trade barriers, while Bangladesh, India, and Cambodia were considered to face moderate risk.

In contrast, suppliers in seven CAFTA-DR member countries – USA, Costa Rica, Dominican Republic, El Salvador, Guatemala, Honduras, and Nicaragua – and US domestic manufacturers were viewed as the least exposed to potential new trade restrictions.

The survey for the 2026 Fashion Industry Benchmarking Study was carried out between April and June 2026 and covered 30 leading US fashion companies.

Bangladesh, the report also said, achieved a historic milestone by surpassing China in the US apparel market for the first time in decades.

During the first five months of 2026, Bangladesh accounted for 11.3 per cent of US apparel imports by value, placing it second only to Vietnam, which held a 22.2 per cent share, while China’s share declined to 9.7 per cent.

Nearly 47 per cent of the surveyed companies reported that Bangladesh represented more than 10 per cent of their total sourcing value or volume, highlighting the country’s continued strategic importance to global buyers.

Despite these achievements, the report identified the speed to market as one of Bangladesh’s weakest competitive areas.

Bangladesh received a score of only 2.3 on 5 for speed to market, reflecting persistent logistical constraints and the country’s geographical distance from major consumer markets, it said.

While Bangladesh continued to excel in cost-efficient, large-scale production, its longer lead times became a competitive disadvantage as international retailers increasingly demanded faster inventory replenishment and shorter fashion cycles, findings suggested.

Despite the lower utilisation rate, the report presented an optimistic outlook for Bangladesh.

It ranked Bangladesh as the second most popular ‘rising star’ for future sourcing expansion, with 46.7 per cent of the respondents planning to increase sourcing from the country over the next two years, second only to Indonesia.

The report said that Bangladesh was expected to remain a dominant force in global apparel sourcing through 2028.

However, it said, sustaining that position would depend on the country’s ability to improve logistics, reduce lead times, strengthen domestic textile production, enhance labour and environmental compliance, and increase manufacturing flexibility while preserving its long-standing cost advantage.

The report also highlighted Bangladesh’s limited flexibility in accommodating smaller and specialised orders.

It said that Bangladesh had received a minimum order quantity score of 2.6, significantly below China’s leading score of 4.0.

According to the study, this indicated that Bangladesh remained primarily geared towards high-volume production of basic garments rather than smaller, more diverse production runs increasingly sought by international brands.

Vertical integration remained an area requiring improvement, the report also said.

Although Bangladesh scored 3.4 for vertical manufacturing capability, outperforming several competing countries, it continued to trail China, which scored 4.8, and India, which scored 4.0.

Most US fashion companies, the report said, still depended heavily on China for textile raw materials, including fabrics and accessories, increasing Bangladesh’s dependence on imported inputs and limiting its ability to shorten production lead times.

Bangladesh received a labour and social compliance score of 2.2 and an environmental compliance score of 2.4, placing it among the lower-performing sourcing destinations in these areas, it also said.

According to the report, improving traceability, labour standards, and environmental performance would be essential as international brands faced increasingly stringent regulatory requirements, including the Uyghur Forced Labor Prevention Act and emerging Extended Producer Responsibility laws.

The study found that Bangladesh was perceived as carrying a relatively high risk from future US import trade barriers, receiving a score of 2.2.

Unlike suppliers in the Western Hemisphere that benefited from preferential trade agreements, the survey noted, Bangladesh remained subject to standard tariff arrangements, increasing cost pressures at a time when protectionist trade policies were becoming a growing concern for apparel companies.

Respondents awarded Bangladesh a sourcing cost score of 4.3 on 5, tying it with China as the highest-rated sourcing destination for cost competitiveness.

The report said that Bangladesh’s established low-cost manufacturing base continued to provide international fashion brands with an effective hedge against rising global inflation and shipping costs.

According to the report, US fashion companies were moving away from the traditional concentration of orders in the three largest sourcing countries – China, Vietnam, and Bangladesh – and were increasingly distributing production across a wider range of markets to reduce geopolitical, regulatory, and supply chain risks.

During 2026, companies reported sourcing from 49 countries, up from 46 a year ago.

Emerging destinations such as Indonesia, Cambodia, Egypt, Jordan and Guatemala, the report said, were attracting increasing attention as buyers sought a more geographically balanced sourcing portfolio.

It said that imports from non-Asian countries had reached 15.8 per cent of the total US apparel imports, the highest level in more than a decade.

The report also said that buyers were consolidating rather than expanding their supplier networks.

Nearly half of the surveyed companies said that they planned to work with fewer suppliers over the next two years, preferring stronger strategic partnerships with vendors capable of providing greater traceability, compliance, and operational resilience.

Read the full article here.

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.

Quinnipiac: 51% Oppose Trump Tariffs on Mexico, Canada, and China

Quinnipiac University reports that 51% of registered voters oppose Trump’s threatened tariffs against Mexico, Canada and China, while 38% support them. Unsurprisingly, 76% of Republicans support the plan, while 89% of Democrats and 53% of independents opposed the tariff plan. Neither a majority of men (47%) nor women (30%) support the tariffs, though 53% of registered voters without a 4-year college degree support them.

Retail Dive: Tariffs on $200B worth of imports from China start Sept. 24

By Shefali Kapadia

Upon written and oral public comments, officials removed about 300 tariff lines from the original list and did not add any additional items or categories. The total value of goods, however, remains around $200 billion. Despite the removal of some textile and apparel products from the list, many products from those categories as well as accessories were still subject to the new tariffs. Industry associations chimed in following the announcement to express their opposition to the tariffs.

"These tariffs on imports of textiles, apparel, and accessories do little to punish China for its intellectual property and technology transfer practices but do a lot to harm American fashion brands and retailers as well as consumers of their products," said United States Fashion Industry Association President Julia K. Hughes.

Click here to read the entire article on the Retail Dive website.

Small Business Administration Ups Loan Guarantee to Accelerate Trump Admin’s Reshoring Goals

On a 2 April deadline, Sourcing Journal discusses the recent trend in reshoring due to tariff policy:

Kate Nishimura | April 2, 2026

The following is an excerpt...

Beginning May 1, manufacturers across NAICS Sectors 31–33—including factories, plants and mills engaged in the production of durable and non-durable goods like textiles, food, electronics and machinery—will become eligible for the expanded ITL Program.

Those that are approved for the loans can use them to upgrade or replace equipment to improve productivity and margins, modernize their facilities and production lines, build more resilient inventory positions, and expand operations and capacity through strategic acquisitions, the SBA said. The goal is to “[d]iversify supply chains away from foreign adversaries and bring critical production back to the United States.”

“The enhanced SBA funding builds on the Trump Administration’s broader commitment to reshoring American industry and domestic supply chains,” the SBA added.

There’s little to show that the administration’s efforts—including its tariff regime—have prompted a reshoring wave within the fashion and textiles sector. The U.S. Fashion Industry Association’s (USFIA) 2025 benchmarking study revealed “[n]o clear evidence indicates that the Trump Administration’s tariff policy has successfully encouraged U.S. fashion companies to increase domestic sourcing of ‘Made in the USA’ textile and apparel products or to expand sourcing from the Western Hemisphere.” At the time, just 44 percent of the group’s survey respondents, which included 25 leading brands and retailers, said they planned to expand sourcing from the Western Hemisphere, and just 17 percent said they planned to source more goods from the U.S.

The tides could be shifting, though, along with ever-changing geopolitics and evolving trade policy. A KPMG study released this week showed that 26 percent of large American companies are either planning or executing reshoring initiatives, up from just 10 percent six months ago. Almost two-fifths said they were accelerating their domestic production strategies, and over half were prioritizing investments in their U.S. operations.

View the article pdf here.

Sourcing Journal: Biden’s Inaction on China Like ‘Groundhog Day’

On a 27 September deadline, Sourcing Journal discusses the unchanged combatitive trade policies with China despite the start of Biden's term:

Chelsea Dobrosielski | September 27, 2021

After eight months in office, President Joe Biden has yet to significantly shake up his predecessor’s combative trade policies with China.

United States Fashion Industry Association (USFIA) president Julie Hughes lamented this reality Thursday during Sourcing at Magic’s online session “What’s On the Horizon for Trade Policy and Sourcing.”

“After the election and the Inauguration in January, I think many folks thought we were going to see a lot of things very different from during the past four years and that trade policy would be one of them,” Hughes said. “But, unfortunately, from my perspective, the tariffs and the trade wars are not over.”

As president-elect, Joe Biden said he wouldn’t remove the tariffs he inherited from Trump right away, but instead promised to conduct a full review of the Phase One trade deal with China. That process is still ongoing, apparently. “My frustration is we would have hoped by mid-September that the review would be finished, but that is still ongoing,” Hughes said. She likened the current situation to “Groundhog Day,” the 1993 classic in which Bill Murray famously relives the same day over and over.

The apparel industry has repeatedly called for the Biden administration to alter the Chinese tariffs imposed by former President Trump. Just last month, the National Retail Federation (NRF), American Apparel and Footwear Association (AAFA) and Retail Industry Leaders Association, alongside dozens of other organizations, sent a letter to United States Trade Representative (USTR) Katherine Tai and Treasury Secretary Janet Yellen reviving concerns over the ongoing burden of Trump-era China tariffs.

A report published by The Wall Street Journal outlined several potential actions the Biden administration is currently considering, including an investigation into Chinese subsidies, new tariffs, cuts to existing tariffs and the reopening of the exclusion process. At the same time, the USTR’s office is reportedly considering action in response to China’s failure to meet its Phase One purchasing commitments.

Hughes also highlighted the ongoing migration crisis. Rather than a negative, she framed the current moment as an opportunity to expand Western Hemisphere sourcing, particularly in the Northern Triangle.

“We are definitely engaged in discussions with the administration and with our colleagues in the [Central American Free Trade Agreement] region, Central America and Western Hemisphere, on what might be ways to expand sourcing, create more jobs in the textile and apparel sector that will keep people from traveling to the border, coming to the U.S., because they’re going to have better jobs back at home,” she said.

In the legislature, the Uyghur Forced Labor Prevention Act remains tied up in the House after unanimous approval from the Senate in July. The law would create a “rebuttable presumption” that assumes all products from Xinjiang are made with forced labor—and therefore banned from entering the United States under the 1930 Tariff Act—unless “clear and convincing” evidence demonstrates otherwise. The renewal of the Generalized System of Preferences (GSP) and the Miscellaneous Tariff Bill (MTB) await House approval as well.

Hughes also noted the expiration of the Trade Promotion Authority, a fast-track negotiating tool that would help the Biden administration work out potential trade deals, including with the United Kingdom and Kenya.

“Congress will need to approve Trade Promotion Authority and frankly, given the dysfunction that we have been seeing lately, it will be a hard ask for Republicans to support Trade Promotion Authority for a Democratic president and it’s likely to slow us down on new trade agreements that are negotiated,” Hughes said.

Though these issues are priorities for the USFIA, its president acknowledged that Congress is “a bit distracted” for now, given the current focus on the budget and the debt ceiling. Still, she said she expected action—at least on China—should come before the end of the year.

View the article pdf here.

Sourcing Journal: Brands, Retailers Face Sourcing Paralysis As Inventory Dwindles

Kate Nishimura | May 6, 2025

Despite the 90-day pause on President Donald Trump’s “reciprocal” tariff scheme, the impacts of the duties are likely to be felt at retail much sooner.

It will be weeks, not months, before consumers start to see dwindling inventory—sparse racks, spotty shelves—at their favorite stores, according to many experts.

And that’s only the beginning. Because amid the uncertainty, retailers are pushing out decision-making about back-to-school and the fall and winter holidays—choices and commitments that would normally be taking shape now.

Instead, brands and retailers are in a holding pattern and attempting to avoid solidifying their sourcing and inventory strategies for as long as possible, according to Julia K. Hughes, president of the U.S. Fashion Industry Association (USFIA).

“Everyone hopes to get some insights about what the Trump trade deals will look like,” she explained. “Aside from China, the question is whether the 10-percent tariffs stay in place or [whether] the big ‘reciprocal tariffs’ return on July 9. It’s difficult to sign contracts when no one knows what the costs will be.”

In the case of China, which faces 145-percent duties on U.S. imports, the tariffs are essentially an embargo, she said. That’s a problem because for fashion brands, there aren’t a lot of options for sourcing certain products, and there’s not enough time to switch to new markets, especially with reciprocal duties looming. “Sweaters are a great example where China is the major manufacturer of all types of sweaters—cotton, wool and man-made fiber,” Hughes said. The prohibitive cost of importing them will inevitably lead to a smaller selection at retail.

As confusion persists, “Small business owners are canceling orders and will be the first to be affected,” she added. “For larger companies, no question that the uncertainty is hurting everyone’s ability to plan. They are ready to raise prices, and they are working with key suppliers on business plans, but I get the sense that they are postponing a lot of decisions until there is some clarity about what comes next.”

Sourcing Journal: Cotton Coalition Pushes BACA in House

On a 27 February deadline, Sourcing Journal reports on the recent Buying American Cotton Act.

Alexandra Harrell | February 27, 2026

The following is an excerpt....

In the letter, the group describes the bill as an opportunity to strengthen the American cotton supply chain “from farm to retail,” arguing that federal procurement policy can reinforce domestic production while supporting producers, manufacturers and retailers tied to U.S.-grown fiber.

Comprising 78 undersigning organizations, it cut across agriculture, manufacturing and retail. Big brands like Gap, Levi’s, Ralph Lauren, Target, Under Armour and Victoria’s Secret are all there, alongside the U.S. Fashion Industry Association. But the bulk of the signatories actually come from state-level and commodity-backed groups: think Farm Bureau chapters, cotton growers and regional co-ops from Arizona to the Carolinas.

“On behalf of our members, we support the initiative by the U.S. cotton producers. Fashion brands and retailers work closely with the cotton producers and, of course, we are their customers,” said Julia Hughes, the USFIA‘s president. “This is a creative effort to offer an incentive that benefits both the cotton producers and the retailers. To my knowledge, this type of program has never been tried before, and we are pleased to be a part of the effort.”

Read the full article here

Sourcing Journal: Industry Has Swift and Varied Reactions to Supreme Court Tariff Decision

On a 20 February deadline, Sourcing Journal reports on the recent Supreme Court Ruling regarding IEEPA Tariffs.

Kate Nishimura | February 20, 2026

The following is an excerpt....

Calling the ruling “a tremendous victory for American consumers and American businesses,” Julia Hughes, president of the U.S. Fashion Industry Association, said fashion brands and retailers already pay some of the highest tariffs on apparel and footwear.

“This is a positive step forward to improve affordability and remove the economic uncertainty that has held back many companies from making new investments,” she added.

But now that the decision has been made, one key issue remains at the forefront for the fashion sector: tariff refunds.

Read the full article here.

Sourcing Journal: Industry Laments ‘Potentially Crushing Burden’ of Trump’s Tariffs

Kate Nishimura | March 4, 2025

The White House’s Tuesday tariff announcement was confirmation, not a revelation, but it still sent shockwaves through the markets. Now, groups representing the interests of apparel, footwear, textiles and retail are grappling with the long- and short-term implications of 25-percent tariffs on goods from Mexico and Canada and a deepening of duties on China-made product.

Whether their members are U.S. brands and retailers dealing in finished goods or American manufacturers trading in inputs and materials, industry advocacy groups bemoaned what they view as the skewering of a collaborative hemispheric supply chain and a strong, interconnected consumer market bolstered by free trade....

U.S. Fashion Industry Association (USFIA) president Julie Hughes also expressed dismay at the president’s decision to take on the industry’s major nearshore trading partners, saying that the tariffs “ignore the complex Western Hemisphere supply chains and close trade ties created by textile and apparel companies during the more than 30 years since a regional free trade agreement first went into effect.”

According to Hughes, farmers, retailers and shoppers will bear the brunt of the impact of tit-for-tat trade wars. Canada on Tuesday announced its own duties on more than $100 billion in American-made goods—starting with apparel, among other categories. Mexican President Claudia Sheinbaum said her government would respond imminently with its own duties on U.S. goods.

“The Western Hemisphere’s apparel and textile supply chain is deeply intertwined and retaliation will hurt Americans,” Hughes said. “The ‘Made in’ label only tells part of a garment’s story,” she added, noting that the journey of even a simple cotton T-shirt can be a winding one, incorporating inputs and labor from multiple markets. U.S. cotton growers, for example, supply about 60 percent of the raw material to support Mexico’s textile production needs.

And together, Mexico and Canada supplied about $3.1 billion apparel imports to the U.S. in 2024.

China, too, still has an outsized role to play in the life of the American consumer, despite Trump’s longstanding political objectives in targeting the PRC, the USFIA lead said. “There will be a major impact on costs and inflation from the 20 percent additional tariffs on imports from China,” she added. “Apparel and textile products already face some of the highest tariff rates of any U.S. imports, reaching as high as 32 percent.”

Sourcing Journal: It Will Take More Than Tariffs to Bring Back U.S. Textile Manufacturing, Industry Insiders Say

On a 4 May deadline, Sourcing Journal reports on the inputs needed to rebuild the US Textile Manufacturing industry.

Kate Nishimura | May 4, 2026

The following is an excerpt....

Tariffs may have prompted trade diversification, but not to the U.S. market or even the Western Hemisphere, according to Dr. Sheng Lu, professor of fashion and apparel studies at the University of Delaware, whose research fueled the latest Fashion Industry Benchmarking Study released by the U.S. Fashion Industry Association.

A record-high percentage of surveyed companies opened up their sourcing to more than 10 countries last year, and almost 60 percent said they plan to source apparel from even more countries moving forward. Even with the push to broaden their portfolios, however, Asia remains a dominant source of U.S. apparel imports.

By value, a whopping 72.6 percent of U.S. apparel imports came from Asia in 2025, up from 71.6 percent the year prior. According to Lu’s research, Vietnam, Bangladesh, Indonesia, India and Cambodia collectively hit a new record, accounting for 50.6 percent of U.S. apparel imports last year, compared to around 37.1 percent pre-COVID-19. “In other words, due to production capacity constraints, many U.S. fashion companies have been diversifying sourcing within Asia rather than significantly shifting orders to other regions,” he wrote.

“Emerging sourcing destinations like Cambodia, Indonesia or India — they have built capacity and they’re supported by investors from China,” Lu told Sourcing Journal. He believes that’s the reason these countries saw export growth to the U.S. skyrocket last year.

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