WASHINGTON — January 13, 2025 — The National Council of Textile Organizations (NCTO) and the National Chamber of the Textile Industry (CANAINTEX) commend the Mexican government for its decisive action to curb the flow of illegal and subsidized apparel products from Asia that evade tariffs and undermine the U.S.-Mexico textile co-production chain.
In as joint letter to Mexican President Claudia Sheinbaum, NCTO and CANAINTEX expressed strong support for Mexico’s new decree, which imposes penalty tariffs and taxes on imported finished textile and apparel goods and certain inputs into Mexico from non-Free Trade Agreement countries. These measures will shield regional supply chains and ensure fair competition for production in the United States and Mexico.
See a link to the full letter here.
The decree also targets the misuse of the U.S. “de minimis” trade loophole by taxing goods entering the U.S. from Mexican warehouses that exploit the rule to avoid tariffs, a practice that has significantly harmed U.S. and Mexican textile and apparel manufacturers. The associations are also asking the incoming Trump administration to immediately close the de minimis loophole.
U.S. textile producers have lost 25 plants and 26,000 jobs in the past 18 months, while Mexico’s industry has shed over 75,000 jobs, largely due to predatory trade practices by non-USMCA signatories like China.
“Despite the legal efforts of Mexico and the United States to prevent the importation of goods that are undervalued, made with forced labor or with tariff or regulatory restrictions, we have seen firsthand how the Asian market has gained an unfair advantage through predatory trade practices, displacing companies and workers in the USMCA industries and undermining our critical coproduction chain,” the associations wrote in the letter. “The countries participating in the USMCA produce ample supply to guarantee a continuous flow of cost competitive manufactured products. The Decree will improve the production chain, grow jobs and ensure tariff preferences are granted to goods manufactured in the region and stop rewarding non-signatories such as China and other Asian suppliers.”
Posted: January 13, 2025
Source: The National Council of Textile Organizations (NCTO)
