The United States reduced its textiles and clothing imports by 12% in the first quarter, to $23.7 billion worth of goods. Additional tariffs, now deemed illegal by US courts, continued to have an impact during the period.
After experiencing a 32.3% drop in its textiles and clothing exports to the US last year, China posted a 45.9% slump compared with the first quarter of 2025, which preceded “Liberation Day,” when the introduction of new US tariffs was announced. Over the January to March period, China exported $3.1 billion worth of goods to the US, compared with $4.4 billion for Vietnam (+4.7%), which, as last year, remains the US’s leading supplier.
However, US textiles and clothing imports from Asia did not decline across the board, with the ASEAN bloc even posting a 5.8% increase to $7.8 billion. Nevertheless, India and Bangladesh recorded respective declines of 26.6% and 8.2% over the period, to $2.0 billion and $2.1 billion worth of goods. Cambodia, by contrast, posted a 16.3% increase to $1.4 billion, highlighting the order shifts that have taken place in the region over the past year.
The European Union saw its textiles and clothing exports to the US rise by 7.6% to $1.4 billion in the first quarter. The EU, the US’s sixth-largest supplier, posted a modest 3.4% rise to $5.5 billion in 2025.
The main aim of the “Trump tariffs” was to limit imports in the targeted sectors to favour domestic production. This proved unsuccessful over full-year 2025, which saw US imports increase, while in textiles there was merely a shift in the geography of production.
Nevertheless, the first quarter of 2026 shows a slowdown in US textiles and clothing orders, down 12% over the first three months of the year. This decline can probably be attributed to reduced orders linked to the additional cost of the Trump tariffs, and also to the March spike in transport costs due to the blockade of the Strait of Hormuz. The cost of shipping a container between Shanghai and Los Angeles rose from $2,191 at the end of February to $2,930 at the end of April.
