Clothing imports from China fell to a 22-year low in May and were down by more than half (52 percent) from the same period in 2024 amid escalating tariff tensions between Washington and Beijing that have since resulted in a patched-up trade truce.
For the first time in decades, China’s share of apparel imports into the U.S. market dropped below 10 percent. May saw the sourcing superpower account for just 9.9 percent of clothing imports — a plummet from the year-ago period, when China represented 19.9 percent of all apparel brought into the American market.
The May trade insights, compiled by University of Delaware professor of fashion and apparel studies Dr. Sheng Lu using U.S. International Trade Commission (USITC) data, revealed that tariff rates on fashion products (especially steep duties on China-originating goods) ballooned beyond levels seen in the modern era.
As a result of the Trump administration’s reciprocal tariff regime, the average tariff rate for U.S. apparel imports grew to 23.8 percent in May, up several points from the already record-setting 20.8 percent seen in April (and substantially higher than the 13.9 percent average rate in May 2024, and even the 14.7 percent rate of January 2025, before the president’s second term began).
China predictably faced the brunt of that burden for several weeks after a tit-for-tat spate of escalating tariff threats between President Donald Trump and Chinese trade officials. On April 9, the president set a 145 percent duty rate on China-originating products — an unprecedented measure that was reversed on May 12 when U.S. cabinet officials traveled to Geneva to meet with their Chinese counterparts and brokered a truce that reduced the duty rate on both sides significantly.
The duty hike had the effect of reducing apparel imports from China sharply, but those that did enter the U.S. market during May faced tariff rates averaging an unprecedented 69.1 percent, up from 55 percent the month prior, 37 percent in March and 22.1 percent in January. Lu calculated the applied tariff rate on apparel by dividing the duty rate by the value of imports. All told, while the overall value of apparel imports decreased 7 percent year-over-year, import duties grew by almost 60 percent during the same time frame.
“In May, I think most of the [average apparel tariff] increase was because of China. And for the rest of the world, they were charged a 10 percent universal tariff rate. Some products, especially those from Asia, were able to enter [the country] in May before the new tariff rate hit,” Lu said.
Across the board, all countries paid more duties on apparel in May than they did in previous months due to the universal baseline tariff. Vietnam’s average apparel import duty rate reached 25.9 percent, up from 20.5 percent in April, while Bangladesh saw a similar percentage jump from 17.8 percent to 21.1 percent month-over-month. India’s average clothing tariff rate climbed from 15.8 percent to 20.1 percent, while Cambodia’s increased from 19.7 percent to 24.6 percent.
There were winners to be found in May, however, and their growing import values correlated with manageable tariff rates. Mexico, for example, saw its average import duties paid on apparel products decrease from 2.2 percent in April to 1.4 percent in May — nearly the same rate it paid one year ago.
But Mexico’s apparel import values jumped considerably year-over-year, by 12.2 percent. The country’s apparel imports are covered by the U.S.-Mexico-Canada Agreement (USMCA), giving them duty-free access. However, the country still only accounted for 4.6 percent of U.S. apparel sourcing in May.
The biggest players are still the Asian nations, many of which have received letters from the Trump administration regarding their new, double-digit tariff rates. They also faced threats against transshipment, or rerouting products from other countries with the goal of evading tariffs.
Lu, like other experts, believes the reference may allude to the administration’s intent to revisit content requirements and Rules of Origin, as true transshipment of finished goods is already illegal. In his view, “The signal is very clear — the Trump administration not only wants to decouple from China, but it wants Asian countries to decouple their supply chains from China.”
But the Trump administration’s long-held goal of encouraging Asian nations to abandon China as a partner “does not appear to be realistic, at least in the near to medium term,” with so much dependence on the country for inputs, he said.
For example, Organization for Economic Co-operation and Development (OECD) data from 2020 (the latest year for which insights are available) showed that about 55.4 percent of the value of Vietnam’s textile and apparel gross exports contained content added from other countries —including 26.6 percent contributed by China. UNComtrade data was even more stark, showing that China accounted for 63.8 percent of the $16.6 billion in textile imports to Vietnam in 2023, a “notable increase” from 37.4 percent in 2010.
Meanwhile, Vietnam represented the biggest apparel supplier to the U.S. in May, accounting for 21.7 percent of clothing imports. Limiting or discouraging access to the imported raw materials needed to produce apparel products could easily threaten Vietnam’s stability as a sourcing base, Lu believes.
The same is true for many of America’s current top suppliers, which in May included Bangladesh (which accounted for 9.7 percent of U.S. apparel import market share), Dominican Republic-Central America Free Trade Agreement (CAFTA-DR) countries (10.4 percent), India (8.2 percent), Indonesia (5.1 percent), Cambodia (5.2 percent) and U.S.-Mexico-Canada Agreement (USMCA) members (5.5 percent).
