WASHINGTON — February 3, 2025 — The National Council of Textile Organizations (NCTO), representing the full spectrum of U.S. textiles from fiber to finished sewn products, issued the following statement today from President and CEO Kim Glas regarding President Donald Trump’s announcement on social media that the U.S. is putting a one-month pause on tariffs on imports from Mexico and Canada, critical export markets for the U.S. textile industry.
Statement by NCTO President and CEO Kim Glas:
“We are grateful that President Trump has reached an agreement with both Mexico and Canada to pause the planned 25 percent penalty tariffs on their imports for one month while all parties continue to negotiate a deal to address his administration’s serious concerns. We fully support the President’s efforts to resolve issues related to migration and fentanyl poisoning as quickly as possible so that we can ensure a normalized trading relationship with Mexico and Canada.
“Mexico is the U.S. textile industry’s largest export market for American fibers, yarns and fabrics, while Canada ranks as the third largest market for these U.S. textiles. These countries serve as partners in the vital North American textile and apparel coproduction chain, helping to support 500,000 U.S. textile jobs nationwide.
“All three countries are signatories to the United States-Mexico-Canada Agreement (USMCA), which is by far the largest export region for U.S. textiles, representing $12.5 billion in combined U.S. exports — 53 percent of our total annual exports. This North American coproduction chain competes directly with China and Asia.
“As such we are very encouraged that President Trump has put a pause on tariffs on imports from Mexico and Canada. We realize this is not a permanent deal with either country, but we are encouraging all parties to reach one as expeditiously as possible.
“While we welcome President Trump’s plan to impose a 10 percent penalty tariff on imports from China outlined in his executive order on Saturday to mitigate China’s massive predatory and often illegal trade practices, we encourage higher penalty tariffs on China that are aggressively targeted to finished apparel and textiles.
“China’s unethical and illegal trade practices, including the egregious use of forced labor, have severely damaged the domestic textile industry for decades, costing hundreds of thousands of U.S. jobs.
“We encourage President Trump to aggressively confront China’s predatory trade practices to ensure a strong American manufacturing base by taking the following concrete steps:
- Raise duties on China significantly higher than the proposed 10 percent on finished apparel and textiles, the goods that China predominantly ships to the U.S. market. Under no circumstances should penalty tariffs on China be lower than any applied to our North American trading partners.
- Eliminate the de minimis tariff waiver exception for all countries, including Mexico and Canada. This dangerous loophole allows importers to avoid paying duties on billions of dollars of imported products and facilitates illegal and deadly products such as fentanyl and goods made by forced labor. Even with a resolution to any disputes with Mexico and Canada, it is critical to move forward with an elimination of de minimis for all countries and maintain this critical provision.
- Intensify customs enforcement to stop illegal undervaluation, misclassification of imports and transshipment of apparel and textile goods through our free trade agreement regions, all of which are designed to avoid duties.
- Maximize customs penalties for repeat trade violators and provide public transparency of repeat trade violators and blacklists.
- Punish countries who are violating our trade laws serving as a backdoor for illegal, subsidized Chinese inputs and finished products into the U.S. marketplace.
“This is a tariff blueprint not only for textiles but for all U.S. manufacturing. It values the North American coproduction chain that is responsible for millions of U.S. manufacturing jobs and billions in two-way trade. Moreover, it targets the true culprit in the international trade arena — China — which has utilized state sponsored subsidies, dumping and other illegal pricing schemes, and unethical labor and environmental practices to destroy global competitors and cause massive manufacturing investment and employment to concentrate in China.
“By ensuring stability in our hemisphere, this plan will also help to mitigate the serious problem of illegal migration into the United States.
“In addition to dealing with the massive trade imbalances President Trump is seeking to rectify, this plan will raise billions in additional revenue for the U.S. Treasury. In the textile sector alone, the U.S. Treasury collected $16.3 billion in duties during fiscal year 2023. That figure could easily be doubled or possibly tripled due to the fact that:
- A higher penalty tariff on China would raise billions in additional revenue as China is the single largest exporter of textiles and apparel to our market representing over 26% of total U.S. textile and apparel imports by value in 2023.
- China currently avoids billions in U.S. duties as the largest single source of de minimis shipments to the United States that currently pay no normal or Section 301 duties.
- Improved enforcement would substantially bolster tariff collections as China is a notorious perpetrator of illegal tariff avoidance schemes such as dumping, product undervaluation and transshipment through duty free regions.
“Decisions related to this tariff plan are critical to the U.S. textile industry, which has lost 26 plants in the last 18 months. Further, if these concepts are applied to all manufacturing sectors, tariff revenue would grow exponentially.
“We look forward to working with President Trump and his administration on these critical issues in order to bring jobs back to the U.S. and build a stronger, more vibrant domestic supply chain in our sector and across all of domestic manufacturing as a whole.”
Posted: February 3, 2025
Source: The National Council of Textile Organizations (NCTO)
