It Will Take More Than Tariffs to Bring Back US Textile Manufacturing, Industry Insiders Say

Seismic shakeups person taken spot crossed the planetary commercialized scenery implicit the past year, with geopolitics and see-sawing tariff argumentation starring to consequences that fewer could person predicted.

On “Liberation Day” successful April 2025, President Donald Trump imposed radically expansive double-digit duties connected commercialized partners crossed the globe with the stated extremity of rectifying “chronic commercialized deficits” that “[threaten] our information and our precise mode of life,” and spurring a reshoring boom. A small implicit 12 months later, the administration’s IEEPA tariff programme has been dismantled, but its impacts are inactive being powerfully felt—just not successful the mode galore American producers expected.

More from WWD

• USTR Hears Testimony successful Forced Labor Investigation That Could Determine Future Tariffs

• CBP's IEEPA Tariff Refund Portal Has Refunded 3% of Entries Since Launch

• 'Crisis After Crisis': Brands Silent arsenic Tariff and Oil Shocks Devastate Garment Workers

Kearney’s 2026 Reshoring Index, released past week, showed home output maturation is inactive successful the negative, with 2025 showing small betterment implicit 2024. More explicitly stated: American producers didn’t payment from the whipsawing tariff argumentation changes.

Manufactured goods output successful the U.S. dipped somewhat by 0.4 percent to the tune of $28 billion. Manufacturing gross output for textiles, fabrics and mill products successful peculiar declined by 4 percent, portion apparel fell markedly by 17 percent.

By contrast, combined imports from 14 Asian low-cost countries and regions similar China—which were deed with punishing duties designed to ding their power connected the U.S. market—grew 6 percent, oregon $60 billion.

Tariffs whitethorn person prompted commercialized diversification, but not to the U.S. marketplace oregon adjacent the Western Hemisphere, according to Dr. Sheng Lu, prof of manner and apparel studies astatine the University of Delaware, whose probe fueled the latest Fashion Industry Benchmarking Study released by the U.S. Fashion Industry Association.

A record-high percent of surveyed companies opened up their sourcing to much than 10 countries past year, and astir 60 percent said they program to root apparel from adjacent much countries moving forward. Even with the propulsion to broaden their portfolios, however, Asia remains a ascendant root of U.S. apparel imports.

By value, a whopping 72.6 percent of U.S. apparel imports came from Asia successful 2025, up from 71.6 percent the twelvemonth prior. According to Lu’s research, Vietnam, Bangladesh, Indonesia, India and Cambodia collectively deed a caller record, accounting for 50.6 percent of U.S. apparel imports past year, compared to astir 37.1 percent pre-Covid. “In different words, owed to accumulation capableness constraints, galore U.S. manner companies person been diversifying sourcing wrong Asia alternatively than importantly shifting orders to different regions,” helium wrote.