Welcome to Off the Cuff, USFIA’s member newsletter that highlights innovation and creativity from USFIA members and Partners.
Thank you for making our Annual Conference a success!
Thanks to everyone who joined us earlier this month at the Apparel Importers Trade & Transportation Conference. Here is a brief photo recap of the day below (photo credit: Lorenzo Ciniglio Photography).
After welcome remarks by FIT Dean Shannon Maher and USFIA's Board Chair Chris Lucas, we began the day with our Policy Outlook panel, featuring USFIA’s Washington Counsel David Spooner and USFIA’s Customs Consultant John Pellegrini.
Tyler Beckelman, Deputy Assistant Secretary for Textiles, Consumer Goods, Materials Industries, Critical Minerals and Metals at the Department of Commerce joined us for an update on trade policy and OTEXA’s priorities.
Tasha Reid Hippolyte, Deputy Assistant Secretary for Trade and Economic Competitiveness at DHS, Brian Hoxie, Director of the Forced Labor Division in CBP’s Trade Remedy Law Enforcement Directorate, and Felicia Pullam, Executive Director of CBP’s Office of Trade Relations, had a conversation with USFIA President Julia Hughes about the Future for Enforcement: Textiles, UFLPA, and more.
This year's Conference also featured an in-depth discussions about traceability and sustainability, with Patricia Jurewicz, Found and CEO of Responsible Sourcing Network, Erin Klett, Senior Program Director for Research Innovation at Verité, Liz Alessi, Business Development Advisor for Bank and Vogue, Tricia Carey, Transformers Foundation Board Member, and Nicole Rycroft, Founder of Canopy, as panelists.
Patricia Jurewicz (background)
(left to right) Liz Alessi, Nicole Rycroft, Tricia Carey
Kelly Pederson, who leads PwC's Retail Practice, shared how important the in-store experience is for holiday shoppers, especially Gen Z who continue to push retailers to reshape the in-store experience to cater to their digital-first preferences.
Mark Messura, Senior Vice President of Global Supply Chain Marketing at Cotton Incorporated, discussed cotton manufacturing, traceability technologies, and circularity.
Sheng Lu, Professor in the University of Delaware’s Fashion and Apparel Studies Department, used a product level analysis to look at the shifting sourcing landscape for U.S. apparel imports.
Apurva Bhargava, Head of U.S. Sales for TrusTrace, shared ways to repurpose primary data for compliance across the mounting regulatory demands on brands and retailers.
Giuseppe Gherzi, Managing Partner of the Gherzi Textil Organisation, highlighted the 34 trends affecting the fashion industry’s future.
Colby Potter, Solutions Manager at Sayari, Erin Williamson, Vice President of Customs Brokerage at GEODIS, and Bob Kirke, Executive Director of the Canadian Apparel Federation discussed the new issues for compliance that they are keeping an eye on.
We finished off the day with a fascinating presentation from Dr. Theanne Schiros, Assistant Professor at the Fashion Institute of Technology. Dr. Schiros is working on ways to build better fashion with biology and shared her research prototypes with attendees during our networking reception.
In the News
Just Style previewed our Apparel Importers Trade & Transportation Conference in Fashion world under Trump to dominate USFIA event agenda.
Following the 2024 US Presidential election, the USFIA conference will provide critical insights into what the fashion industry can expect under the incoming administration. With President-elect Donald Trump planning a more aggressive trade agenda, including potential executive actions on tariffs, the industry is eager to understand how these shifts will impact trade and customs policies. …
In addition to trade policy discussions, the event will feature experts from across the fashion ecosystem, focusing on areas such as compliance, logistics, sourcing, corporate social responsibility, and government relations. It will also provide an opportunity for attendees to stay informed on the latest regulatory changes and market trends.
Sourcing Journal published three stories about this year’s Apparel Importers Trade & Transportation Conference.
Tariffs, Trade Preferences and Trump: The USFIA Explains highlighted the opening session The Election is Over! What’s Next for Trade and Customs Policy:
Prepare to see a lot more people added to the UFLPA Entity List—the so-called “bad guys’ list” of companies with cited ties to the persecution of Turkic Muslim minorities—and increased enforcement of the rebuttable presumption that all goods made in whole or in part from the Xinjiang Uyghur Autonomous Region are the product of forced labor and therefore barred from entry, said David Spooner, partner at Barnes & Thornburg and Washington counsel at the United States Fashion Industry Association (USFIA), the trade group behind the event. …
Peals of laughter—albeit some that were pointedly strangled—rang out when Spooner clicked over to a slide that bore just one phrase: Tariff armageddon. “We’re downplaying it, right?” quipped Julia K. Hughes, president of the UFIA. Trump’s proposed tariffs—60 percent on Chinese imports, as much as 100 percent on Mexico’s and 10-20 percent for any other nation that’s been, in his words, “ripping off” America—are a topic that’s been on everyone’s mind. …
Hughes said that a lot of what will happen is hard to predict. Much also hinges on Trump’s nominees and how much shock and awe the administration will want to elicit out of the gate.
“My gut right now says it looks like the administration is looking for how much can we do this big splash on Day 1,” she said. “So that makes me anxious about what might be, what will be on the table. But I think we need to see who are going to be the people in the positions as well, so that we might understand better what the recommendations would be. We don’t have all the answers yet.”
‘Everything is Forced Labor’: What the Future of US Textile Trade Enforcement Looks Like covered the roundtable with Tasha Reid Hippolyte, Deputy Assistant Secretary for Trade and Economic Competitiveness at DHS, Brian Hoxie, Director of the Forced Labor Division in CBP’s Trade Remedy Law Enforcement Directorate, and Felicia Pullam, Executive Director of CBP’s Office of Trade Relations:
“Brian Hoxie, director of the forced labor division at U.S. Customs and Border Protection’s (CBP) Trade Remedy Law Enforcement Directorate, says this so much he isn’t sure if it’s even a joke anymore.
“I like to say that everything seems to be forced labor,” he said at the United States Fashion Industry Association’s Apparel Importers Trade & Transportation Conference in New York City last week. “It’s textiles, it’s de minimis, it’s just taking a pick of what product it is—there’s some kind of connection to forced labor.”
…
With the Uyghur Forced Labor Prevention Act, or UFLPA, now in its third year of enforcement of targeting goods from China’s Xinjiang region, Tasha Reid Hippolyte, deputy assistant secretary for trade and economic competitiveness at the Department of Homeland Security, feels no small degree of vindication.
“I think there were a lot of skeptics in terms of would we be able to implement it? Would we be able to enforce the rebuttable presumption? Would we be able to even add entities to Entity List, and will we completely just shut down trade?” she said. “So to that, three things: One, we’ve been able to add additional entities; two, we’ve seen an uptick in what CBP has been able to enforce; and three, we have not completely shut down trade. So that’s a really positive thing. And in two years, we’ve learned a lot.”
One of those learnings is that transparency and information sharing are critical to facilitating enforcement, Hippolyte said. So is eradicating some of the pain points that stymie engagement with a priority industry like textiles and apparel. Of the nearly 80 names on the UFLPA Entity List, for instance, half relate to the sector. Continuing to expand that list—and, in time, including items of interest such as Chinese names and physical addresses—will remain important to “reinforce” transparency for the trade community and supply it with the drumbeat of things it’s been asking for, she added.
“It is so important for us to hear where those issues are because we are truly listening,” Hippolyte said, adding that the UFLPA dashboard, which tracks detentions by sector, value and country of origin, arose from some of those conversations.
Can US Fashion Sourcing Give Up China? shared Dr. Lu’s product level analysis of U.S. apparel imports:
Despite all chatter to the contrary, fashion companies are still dragging their feet when it comes to diversifying their supplier base, Sheng Lu, professor of fashion and apparel studies at the University of Delaware, said at the United States Fashion Industry Association’s Apparel Importers Trade & Transportation Conference in New York City last week.
The proof is in the numbers, he said. In a tally of the top 10 suppliers of clothing products to the United States from January to October, China accounted for almost 61 percent of imports with nearly 62,000 SKUs. Its next-closest rivals—India and Vietnam—barely registered as challengers with only 15,000 SKUs apiece. Cambodia was a distant fourth with 3,500 SKUs and Bangladesh an even further fifth with less than 3,000.
The problem is that finding a sourcing locale that can offer the same breadth of products as China remains a lift so heavy that it’s proven nearly impossible to budge, Lu said. Buying from China isn’t so much about price anymore but capabilities. While the types of apparel made by what he dubbed the “Asia 5”—meaning Bangladesh, Cambodia, India, Indonesia and Vietnam—have ticked up over the past year, there are still holes in what they can offer. The Asia 5 can only fulfill 71 percent of the tops and 47 percent of the dresses that China supplies, for instance.
USFIA was mentioned in a Fashion Dive article looking at 5 ways the election will impact fashion.
Nearly 98% of apparel consumed in the U.S. is imported, according to the United States Fashion Industry Association. That means the next administration’s approach to import tariffs will affect the fashion industry’s bottom line.
PBS News Hour talked to USFIA for a story on the discarded clothing that winds up in Ghana.
"No one in the industry is intentionally making clothing that will go to landfills or to developing countries."
[USFIA] referred us to a group they support called Accelerating Circularity. Formed five years ago, it has launched a number of preliminary trials it hopes someday to scale up, promoting a so-called circular economy, more reuse, less disposal, and proper recycling.
Just Style spoke with USFIA President Julia Hughes about Trump's proposed tariffs on imports from China, Canada, and Mexico:
United States Fashion Industry Association (USFIA) president Julie Hughes told Just Style it’s not a surprise Trump is threatening tariffs and that it’s likely we will see more come through in the next 55 days before he takes office, but the worry is that Canada and Mexico are threatened with higher tariffs than China. “Why? Because the border crisis is at the top of mind for the incoming administration.“That’s why 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,” she says.
USFIA Events
December 12, 2024 (Online): Protecting Your Brand and Intellectual Property on TikTok Shop. Join Kostas Fintrilis and Wei-Wen Wang from TikTok Shop, along with Daniel Shapiro from Red Points for an exclusive webinar focused on protecting your brand’s intellectual property while growing your presence on TikTok Shop. We’ll cover TikTok Shop's IP protection policies and tools available to protect your brand’s IP. Discover the tools and mechanisms available on TikTok Shop to defend your brand’s success and ensure sustainable growth.
January 9, 2025 (Online): USFIA’s members-only January State of the Industry webinar.
February 11, 2025 (Online) – OECD Side Session U.S. Fashion Companies’ Shifting Sourcing Strategies and Outlook for 2025: What Does It Mean for Due Diligence in the Garment Industry?
February 13, 2025 – Fashion Forward 2025 in Seattle, WA. Registration now open!
Industry Events
December 5, 2024: Join USFIA’s Technology Partner Sayari at a webinar introducing Sayari Signal: Comprehensive Risk Data Beyond Regulatory Lists. You’ll hear from SVP of Product Jessica Abell and Sr. Director of Global Data Melina Villavicencio, who will show the world’s most comprehensive, relevant, and explainable risk data in action. Register to attend today.
January 21-23, 2025: TexWorld NYC at the Javits Center.
February 10-12, 2025: Sourcing at MAGIC Las Vegas.
February 11, 2025: Sourcing at MAGIC VIP Executive Summit, featuring USFIA President Julia Hughes, PwC Retail Leader Kelly Peterson, and Akin Gump Senior Counsel Josh Teitelbaum as speakers.
May 6-8, 2025: Save the Date for CBP’s 2025 Trade Facilitation and Cargo Summit at the Hilton New Orleans Riverside.
Want to share what your company is doing? Email Stephanie Gauzens (