USFIA speaks out against US proposal to impose 301 tariffs

01 Jul '19

2 min read

The US Fashion Industry Association (USFIA) recently joined hundreds of US firms who are speaking out against the Trump Administration’s proposal to impose additional tariffs on US families, urging the government to exempt all clothing, home textiles and footwear from these retaliatory tariffs. These tariffs will hurt US brands, retailers and wholesalers, it said.

Clothing, home textiles and shoes for US families are currently taxed more than $15 billion per year. Tariffs on clothing can be as high as 32 per cent.

Higher prices and lower sales will threaten jobs—from entry level retail positions to highly paid design, sourcing and e-commerce positions, USFIA said in a statement.

The association also rejected claims that higher tariffs will bring manufacturing jobs back to the United States, which currently lacks the capacity to make adequate apparel. Apparel and textile supply chains are complex, and involve inputs from multiple countries, it said.

It takes anywhere from two to five years to identify and approve a new vendor. In USFIA’s 2019 Benchmarking Survey, which will be released in July, not a single respondent said that it had found the capacity for production to return to the United States. And some respondents said they are worried that the China tariffs will increase costs for their ‘Made in USA’ products and exports.

These tariffs will do little to punish China for its intellectual property and technology transfer practices but do a lot to harm US fashion brands and retailers as well as consumers, it added. (DS)

Fibre2Fashion News Desk – India

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