How Trumps tariffs will boost my small business

In 2003, I witnessed the end of an era as a junior employee of Levi’s when the company closed its last factories in America.  We had held out as long as we could.The market had shifted rapidly since NAFTA went into effect in January 1994, and even more so when China locked in most-favored-nation status in 2001. Consumer prices were dropping because of cheap labor — forced labor, in the case of China — and our jeans were expensive by comparison.Consumers said they valued the quality of our US-made products.

But they weren’t willing to pay more for it.We were losing market share rapidly. So the iconic American brand went all-in on offshore manufacturing, and US industrial decline accelerated.Today, the United States no longer has ample facilities to produce apparel, nor do we have the skilled labor to make it.Some brands — American Giant and Origin USA, for example — have done amazing work to revive the American apparel industry.

They build their own factories and train the labor.But it’s not enough.  If you’re a small upstart clothing brand like mine, there aren’t many places to turn to here in the United States to manufacture your products.No matter how actively we pursue US producers, capacity is difficult to come by.Our approach is to ensure our athletic gear is made ethically, no matter where we make it. But other than our US-produced water bottles, our products are largely made in Peru and Vietnam.  We are priced in the “premium” sector for athletic apparel.

It’s not like we can compete on price with clothing brands like Shein, offering $5 leggings and $3 tees.Nor are we trying to.  Americans have been trained on cheap goods.

With prices on clothing down 50% in the last 20 years, we buy twice as much as we did in the early 2000s — and wear it half as long.The average American buys about 68 items of new clothing a year, and wears most of them fewer than three times before throwing them away.Blame fast fashion.Brands like...