NEW YORK (AP) — Sending children back to school in new sneakers, jeans and T-shirts is likely to cost U.S. families significantly more this fall if the bespoke tariffs President Donald Trump put on leading exporters take effect as planned, American industry groups warn.
About 97% of the clothes and shoes purchased in the U.S. are imported, predominantly from Asia, the American Apparel & Footwear Association said, citing its most recent data. Walmart, Gap Inc., Lululemon and Nike are a few of the companies that have a majority of their clothing made in Asian countries.
Those same garment-making hubs took a big hit under the president’s plan to punish individual countries for trade imbalances. For all Chinese goods, that meant tariffs of at least 54%. He set the import tax rates for Vietnam and neighboring Cambodia at 46% and 49%, and products from Bangladesh and Indonesia at 37% and 32%.
Working with foreign factories has kept labor costs down for U.S. companies in the fashion trade, but neither they nor their overseas suppliers are likely to absorb new costs that high. India, Indonesia, Pakistan and Sri Lanka also got slapped with high tariffs so aren’t immediate sourcing alternatives.
Why do we keep picking random things to point out that tariffs will effect their price. The tariffs will effect almost everything’s price. Even if things are made in America, very few things are made with 100% American resources, meaning at least some materials, parts, and assembly will be done outside the US and be subject to Tariffs. And even if the thing is 100% American made, when all the competition has to raise prices, guess what they will do too. Nearly nothing will be unaffected by tariffs.
It seems basically equivalent to inflation which we’re quite familiar with because we just went through a huge bump in inflation. The scary thing about that is that I noticed while many people’s jobs started to make at least some competitive adjustments in pay for inflation, others did not. I worry that those of us that didn’t see any income adjustment in the previous round will feel this next wave even harder.
It’s why I bought all the canned goods and clothes I could from costco this week. It’s the last of good prices, and they weren’t even that good.