It’s been a few weeks since the United States elected Donald Trump as their 47th president. I thought it would be entirely appropriate as someone with no economic or political background to provide my input on what this might mean for the fashion industry. The Republican party outlined 20 core principles, sectioning them into 10 chapters [1]. Out of the 10, the first chapter addresses decreasing inflation and bringing down prices [1]. This entails increasing tariffs (the tax on imported goods) by 10-20% for most foreign goods, and between 60-100% for goods coming from China [2]. This sparked something for me, especially when considering fast fashion companies, such as SHEIN (fast fashion mogul!!!!). Fast fashion companies produce 50 million garments per year [3], resulting in massive amounts of pollution being created before, during, and after a garment's life cycle. If I were to make an educated guess, this will increase SHEIN’s prices, worsen the already poor product quality and worker environment. Fast fashion items are already produced with the intention of fast degradation, if quality gets worse, one can only imagine how fashion cycles will quicken and fashion waste will increase. To offset the increase of clothing prices, due to the increased tariffs, worker’s rights will experience detrimental hits. Workers of fast fashion companies already work in terrible conditions, the changes to tariff policies will result in even worse conditions. This will especially affect female workers along every step of the supply chain.
Although I do not live in the United States, a lot of these policies have serious impacts on fashion globally. This is because we have extensive supply chains, most of which include operations situated in China. While the majority of a garment might be produced in the United States, certain elements may have been imported from China. These products, although assembled in the US, will come to Canada at a heightened price to offset the increase in production costs.
A government that does not advocate for sustainability will not produce sustainability. In the past few years, sustainability efforts from consumers have been decreasing [4]. This is likely to worsen throughout the Trump administration. Considering during his last administration he removed the United States from the Paris Agreement, this is likely to occur again in 2025. The environmental impact of Trump’s administration will be detrimental.
Comments