Au revoir, American jeans!
Claude Mary Renoir has to pay a little more for American jeans. The price that she used to pay for this genuinely American garment and symbol of the new world nation is now out of reach. She, a young blonde with a slender body, likes the American denim that has a lot more quality than the one produced in China. Even she likes to show them to her classmates of high school because they grant her certain status and recognition. However, her parents now will not be able to afford the price of the jeans that she prefers. The high costs imposed in Europe on American products such as jeans have had a direct impact on customers and on smaller companies dedicated to the distribution of the said garment.
Roy Slaper, a manufacturer of jeans, specifically of the brand Roy Denim in Oakland, California, said that the tariffs on American jeans directly affect small producers and that is one more blow to extinguish the small US factories that are still producing denim jeans of high quality and durability.
According to the expert, they must continue in the Premium market and keep customers, which are willing to pay up to $ 200 for this kind of item very common among young people and greatly popular in Europe. The high tariffs imposed by Europe and the United States have indistinctly deeply affected the customers and producers of both sides of the Atlantic Ocean.
Victor Lytvinenko, an owner of American jeans factories, recently complained about the great losses he has had since the commercial war by Donald Trump broke out. The owner of the 10-year-old enterprise commented that several of his orders from Europe have had to be canceled because traders are not willing to pay the high price that the products have acquired due to the tariffs´ increase.
"A customer in Scotland apologized for canceling an order of tens of thousands of dollars. Why? The store owner refused to pay an additional 25 percent tariff imposed by the European Union on US-made jeans on June", Lytvinenko stated.
According to the co-founder of Raleigh Denim Workshop they have had to cancel the accounts of two regular customers. "That hurts", he said.
According to this jeans manufacturer, tariffs do not make economic sense because US production is a very "microscopic" part of the global market. "USA exported only US $ 31 million in jeans to the EU last year, close to 16 percent of the industry's total global exports". "But politically, I can understand why. There is nothing more American than jeans", stated the jeans´ producer.
Several experts in economics and American blue denim manufacturers agree that this industry is in real danger due to the commercial dispute of Donald Trump that has also affected other sectors of the economy.
To have an idea of how far the incidence of Trump´s measures has come, in just 12 months they closed two of the last large jeans fabric plants that remained in the United States, one of them Cone Denim in Greensboro, North Carolina, which according to many companies was the last to manufacture large-scale denim fabric in the USA.
In addition to the high tariffs other factors have severely lacerated the industry like the increases in minimum wages in some states, as well as the move of plants to other regions of the world such as Mexico and Asia, Levi Strauss & Co. for instance, due to free trade agreements that encouraged the manufacture of blue jeans abroad. However, those who remained in the United States are affected by the return to protectionism.