US fashion brands’ sourcing costs from Vietnam, Bangladesh, India and China have risen tremendously. The unit price of US apparel imports across the board increased by 10.7 per cent in the first five months of 2019. The unit price of US apparel imports in the first five months of 2019 from Bangladesh, Vietnam and India shot up 25.6 per cent, 23.4 per cent and 21.2 per cent respectively.

The number one driving factor of higher costs is shipping and logistic costs. The biggest challenge now for the fashion industry is the impact of increasing production and sourcing costs. But US tariffs will do little to shake China’s role as a dominant textile and apparel supplier for the US market. Sourcing from China is not expected to significantly fall in the next two years. The unit price of apparel imports from China only grew 3.3 per cent in the same period. Chinese suppliers have actually lowered sales price to keep sourcing orders while only around 9.3 per cent of textile products imported from China are now subject to new US tariffs.

No other country or region in the world can match China’s enormous production capacity in the textile and apparel industry in the foreseeable future and China also doesn’t have a near competitor in terms of variety of products.