Your Opinion: Textile tariffs threaten Mo. manufacturers

Mary Lou Rath

Belle

CottonBelle president/owner

Dear Editor:

CottonBelle has been manufacturing soft goods for the home for 30 years in the small, rural town of Belle, Missouri. On Sept. 24, the Office of the U.S. Trade Representatives imposed a 10 percent tariff on $200 billion of imports to the U.S. from China including home furnishings fabrics but not finished products made in China. On Jan. 1, 2019, the tariff is scheduled to rise to 25 percent. While fibers, yarns and fabrics are subject to this tariff, sewn products and apparel made in China are not. According to Furniture Today (September 2018) apparel and other sewn home goods represent 93.5 percent of U.S. imports in this sector, while fibers, yarns and fabrics total only 6.5 percent. It does not make sense to have tariffs on only 6.5 percent while most of China’s 10 million textile and apparel jobs are concentrated in the final steps of the supply chain, the labor intensive cutting and sewing operations. Finished products from China most directly impact jobs in the U.S.

Our business is devoted to U.S. manufacturing. Our products are made in America by American sewers. We are proud of that. These tariffs threaten to put CottonBelle out of business and our sewers out of work.

Local residents remember the loss of jobs that resulted when International Shoe and Brown Shoe closed and those jobs went to China. “I remember in 1991 when Chinese visitors filmed me sewing at my table,” recalls a former employee of International Shoe and current employee of CottonBelle, Carol Scego. “Two months later I lost my job.”

These newly imposed tariffs create an unequal playing field making it impossible for a small manufacturer like us to to compete with no benefit to local, rural workers or the tariff policy’s stated goal of bringing manufacturing jobs back to the U.S. On Jan. 1, 2019, when the home furnishings fabrics tariffs rise to 25 percent, CottonBelle, a made-in-America manufacturer, may be the next to close.