On 13 August deadline, NBC News reports on the difficulties of made-in-america apparel.
By Jing Feng and Vicky Nguyen | August 13, 2025
Only 2.5% of clothing sold in America is produced domestically, according to AllAmerican.org, a U.S. manufacturing advocacy group. The rest is imported from places like China, Vietnam, India and Bangladesh, where labor is much cheaper. In the 1990s, U.S. apparel factories employed almost a million people. Today, that number has dropped below 100,000.
The U.S. lacks the capacity, materials and technology to meet fashion companies’ sourcing needs, said Sheng Lu, a professor of fashion and apparel studies at the University of Delaware. He also sees no clear evidence that tariff policies have driven fashion companies to source more domestically. In his 2025 Fashion Industry Benchmarking Study, over 80% of apparel companies said they plan to diversify sourcing to offset tariffs, while just 17% expect to increase sourcing from the U.S.