U.S. apparel manufacturers brace for the Trump era

As U.S. President Donald Trump imposes new tariffs on Mexico, Canada and China, manufacturers and brands that already make products in America are seeing increased demand for their services and input.
Ferrara Manufacturing, whose garment factory is in New York City, is hearing more from potential clients these days, as it did back during the first Trump administration, it told Modern Retail. Ferrara Manufacturing mostly makes high-end women’s clothing and has worked with Ralph Lauren, Calvin Klein and Donna Karan. Meanwhile, brands that produce products domestically — such as sportswear brand American Giant — are being asked for advice on how to make it all work.
“Brands are trying to figure out what’s possible,” said Bayard Winthrop, the CEO and founder of American Giant, which makes sweatshirts, T-shirts and jeans. The company has headquarters in San Francisco but primarily uses mills and factories in the Carolinas. “Those conversations are coming in a lot these days,” Winthrop said.
These discussions weren’t always such a rarity. American manufacturing used to be a booming industry, anchored by bigwigs like Levi’s. But in the 1980s and ’90s, brands started shifting more manufacturing overseas, especially to China, due to lower raw materials costs and cheaper labor. In 1980, at least 70% of the clothing Americans wore was made domestically, according to data reviewed by The Atlantic; today, that figure is 3%. Levi’s parent company closed its last U.S. manufacturing plant in 2004.
What’s more, the amount of skilled labor in this sector is dropping. U.S. employment at manufacturers of textiles, textile products and apparel stood at 266,200 people in August 2024, down from 1.2 million in August 1999, per government data reviewed by The Wall Street Journal. Supply chain networks are also under pressure. More than 20 U.S. textile plants closed from early 2023 to the end of 2024, according to the National Council of Textile Organizations.
Trump is vowing to bring more manufacturing back to the U.S., in part by enacting tariffs. Over the weekend, he announced a 25% duty on all imports from Mexico and most goods from Canada, as well as a 10% tariff on imports from China. The tariffs will go into effect on Tuesday, Feb. 4. Both Canada and Mexico ordered retaliatory tariffs in response. (Shortly after this story was published, Trump reportedly agreed to pause Mexico’s tariffs for one month and Canada’s tariffs for 30 days.)
The new tariffs are a departure from promises Trump made on the campaign trail, which were a 10% to 20% tax on most foreign products as well as a 60% tariff on goods from China. Since coming into office, Trump’s administration has also floated a universal tariff, with his treasury secretary advocating for a starting number of 2.5% that would rise higher by the same amount per month.
Trump has made American manufacturing a big part of his 2025 playbook. But some of the U.S.’s infrastructure isn’t yet set up to deal with an influx of domestic manufacturing. In the apparel world, there are some raw materials suppliers, brands and factory owners who are making it work, seven of whom Modern Retail spoke with for this story. Still, many voiced growing day-to-day challenges, and some believe the industry still has a long way to go before U.S. manufacturing can return to its former glory. Doing so would take significant investment, resources and votes of confidence from large brands and retailers, they say. While some executives think tariffs could help spur demand, others aren’t sold on the idea — and, in fact, saw business decline during the last Trump presidency.
“Being on the ground, I’m like, ‘Are we truly set up to scale this?'” asked Irys Kornbluth, chief operating officer of Everywhere Apparel, a Los Angeles-based manufacturer that makes garments out of post-industrial textile waste. Everywhere Apparel makes concert merchandise for artists like Chappell Roan and Wilco, as well as recycled products for Coach’s Coachtopia initiative. “I believe we are set up to scale, but the amount of production that happens in the U.S. right now pales in comparison to other regions,” Kornbluth told Modern Retail.
If there’s a disconnect between demand for U.S. products and the framework to support that demand, the U.S. “will end up with a really big problem,” she said.
‘You have to stitch it together yourself’
American-made clothing isn’t a completely foreign concept to many of today’s shoppers. American Apparel, a hot brand of the aughts, was once a darling of the “made in the U.S.A.” space. (Under new ownership, it now relies mostly on overseas labor.) Meanwhile, in 2021, Walmart announced a $350 billion commitment to buying products made, grown or assembled in the United States over the next decade. The retailer has since partnered up with American Giant to produce T-shirts and sweatshirts.
On the whole, though, many of the brands that are manufactured in America are smaller businesses or designer labels with assortments that are made-to-order. When paired with medium-sized brands, they form a small but determined contingent. And with labor and resources contracting, they’ve had to be resourceful in how they carry out operations.
Winthrop set out to build American Giant as a call back to the American-made clothing he grew up wearing. The brand launched in 2012. However, “the underlying supply chain was not in good shape,” he said. “The good news is, there are still a ton of capable humans and capability domestically… The bad news is, you really have to go in and kind of stitch it together yourself.” It took Winthrop six or seven years, he estimated, to tour factory floors and fully “get stuff done.”
Similarly, Elizabeth Williams, founder of the luxury coat brand The Checkroom, “spent a lot of time beating down the doors” of various wool mills before finding a partner to take her on, she told Modern Retail. “I’m an independent designer, and I work on such a small scale that I think a lot of these textile manufacturers are looking to work with larger brands,” she said. “So that was definitely a hoop for me.”
Wyatt Outdoors is a women’s performance apparel brand whose products recently appeared on “Yellowstone.” Its products are cut and sewn in the U.S. and use wool from the U.S. and Australia. Working with local artisans is a must, founder Colleen Tuohy said. There are talented people “keeping manufacturing alive and well” in the U.S., she said. “It just takes a little bit more effort to ask questions and get to the end of the internet to find them.”
In this type of environment, relationships are key. “It gets easier and easier and easier to make things domestically the more people that are participating,” Winthrop said. Many sources consulted for this story work together along the supply chain and have been important support systems for each other. Williams, for example, was able to eventually partner with American Woolen Company, a textile mill in Connecticut. She then told American Woolen that she wanted to use wool from a business called Shaniko Wool Company in the Western U.S., and the three started working together.
Recommendations from clients like Williams have been crucial for growth, said Jeanne Carver, the founder of Shaniko Wool Company. Carver’s family operates a ranch in Oregon and sold wool to the same retail company for a century (she did not disclose which retailer). However, that company eventually shifted production overseas. “All of a sudden, business as usual didn’t work anymore,” Carver told Modern Retail. “Twenty-six years ago, I had to ask, ‘Who’s left in America, and will they work with me?'”
Carver eventually went on to form Shaniko Wool, a consortium of wool ranchers in the U.S. West with a collective 2.6 million acres. Still, it’s been difficult to get consistent work from large partners, Carver said. When Shaniko Wool works with big brands, it’s typically for a one-off project. “We’re in the conversation, but the stock programs are offshore,” Carver said. “Why? It’s all about cost.”
Turning around American manufacturing
Brands might say they want to manufacture in America, but the final decision ultimately comes down to dollars, said Joseph Ferrara, one of the founders of Ferrara Manufacturing. “We live and die by the cost sheet,” he told Modern Retail.
“I can’t tell you how many sessions we’ve been in where you’re sitting there saying, ‘This is our price,’ and you’re shown a competitor’s landed all-in number,” Ferrara added. “If it’s within 10% [of yours], you’ve got a shot at getting it. As soon as you’re at 11%, they’re like, ‘Too high. I’m going elsewhere.'”
For this reason, Ferrara — who started Ferrara Manufacturing with his wife Carolyn in 1987 — is in favor of a universal tariff starting at 10%. “Having a 10% advantage gives us a lot of room,” he said. But doubling that to 20% “opens up a complete field for us,” Ferrara went on. “It would make us more competitive. We’ve done our analysis, and with a 20% universal tariff, our labor force would triple… to 360 employees.”
Carver of Shaniko Wool also believes tariffs could help increase U.S. manufacturing, although she noted that she operates at the beginning of the supply chain, not the end. “If tariffs encourage U.S. companies to look closer to home to build stock programs, I guess I will be very pleased with that,” she said.
Jacob Long, the president of the Connecticut textile mill American Woolen, found that past tariffs did not help his business. In fact, some of his company’s most difficult years were in 2018 and 2019, during the first Trump administration. Tariffs aren’t a magic wand, he said. “In our industry, things take decades to unwind,” Long explained. “Companies have been operating like this [abroad] for 20 years.”
As Long sees it, the future of the U.S.-based textile industry lies in two things: luxury and small regions. “I think the problem we’re having in America is our business model is focused on quantity, not quality,” he said, referring to the overall industry and American consumption. Long believes that luxury, which focuses on quality, could help with this and absorb some of the costs.
Long also believes that the U.S. can learn from Italy’s model of fashion production, which is concentrated in specific regions like Lombardy and Puglia. For American Woolen, “I think the idea for us is to create this little cluster in New England,” Long said. Once luxury products are created in the U.S., Long sees opportunity in exporting them to Asia. Demand for U.S.-based luxury is high in Asia, he said, mostly because so many luxury products are made in Europe.
For those that can manufacture domestically in the U.S., there are benefits to doing so. These include greater transparency, as well as a reduced climate footprint from lower carbon emissions. The sustainability aspect is especially important to Everywhere Apparel, which uses textile waste as a raw material. “If we ship our waste in the U.S. to China to be manufactured, it kind of negates the sustainability story… and it adds a significant amount of cost,” Kornbluth said.
Meanwhile, Shaniko Wool has been working with Oregon State University to determine the climate impact of its wool operations, which are certified under the Responsible Wool Standard developed by the Textile Exchange. Last year, five out of 10 ranches in Shaniko Wool’s farm group collectively “avoided an additional 75,000 tons of carbon dioxide equivalents,” Carver said. “So, we’re ranching [raising and managing sheep] and cleaning the atmosphere,” she explained.
Ultimately, sources along the supply chain are optimistic about the future of domestic manufacturing. However, ramping up these efforts will require significant capital, confidence and commitment.
“You hear a lot from people saying things like, ‘Oh, you can’t make that in the United States anymore,'” American Giant’s Winthrop said. “There’s not much that irritates me more than hearing that. I often hear that from some of the bigger brands, and if a small company like us is able to do it, they certainly can.”
“But you have to commit to it,” he said. “You’ve got to actually invest in it, both the time and the volume, to make it work. And you need to have at least a working knowledge of how to make things within the factories… or a partnership that enables that to get done.”
This story has been updated to reflect changes made to Trump’s tariff rollout after the executive orders were signed.