A complete analysis of the 2021 full-year US import data from the Office of Textiles and Apparel (OTEXA) revealed that US apparel imports grew by 27.4%, the fastest growth of the past decade. This has been the fastest growth over the past decade and a more significant rebound than during the 2008 global financial crisis (only 13% growth the year after).
Several international organizations predict the US economy in 2022 could grow 3.5% or half the pace in 2021. Thus, US apparel imports will likely expand in 2022 but more modestly.
The value of US apparel imports in 2021 remained 2.5% lower than in 2019 before the pandemic. Except for Bangladesh, most leading apparel suppliers for the US market also see their export value in 2021 short of or only increased marginally compared with the pre-Covid level, including China (down 21.3%), Association of Southeast Asian Nations (ASEAN) members (up 3.
8%), India (up 3.4%), Indonesia (down 5.7%), US-Mexico-Canada Trade Agreement (USMCA) members (down 11.0%), and Dominican Republic-Central America Free Trade Agreement (CAFTA-DR) members (up 0.6%). Overall, the result suggests that it could be too early to say we are “out of the woods.”
Measured by value, more than 70% of US apparel imports came from Asian countries in 2021, a pattern that has stayed stable for over a decade. However, Asian countries’ market shares dropped from 74.2% in 2020 to 72.8% in 2021, the lowest in the past five years (Table 3). Notably, affected by Covid-related lockdown measures, together with other factors, several leading Asian apparel suppliers suffered a decline in their market shares in 2021, led by Vietnam (down 2.01 percentage points), Cambodia (down 0.25 percentage point), and Indonesia (down a 0.
41 percentage point).
The newly enacted Uyghur Forced Labor Prevention Act could be a game-changer in 2022. US fashion companies may find it not operationally viable to source many apparel products from China, depending on the new law’s detailed enforcement strategy to be released by the US Customs and Border Protection (CBP). Further, due to the escalating political tensions between the two countries, US fashion brands and retailers could take another look at their China sourcing strategy to avoid potential high-impact disruptions.
