Signed by 173 companies in the footwear industry including Nike, Adidas, Puma, Reebok, Under Armour, Foot Locker and Ugg, the letter warns of the trade war’s ‘catastrophic’ consequences “for our consumers, our businesses, and the American economy as a whole”.  “On behalf of our hundreds of millions of footwear consumers and hundreds of thousands of employees, – the letter states – we ask that you immediately stop this action to increase their tax burden”.

The initiative was in answer to the escalation of the trade war first triggered off by Trump: after increasing tariffs from 10% to 25% on 200 billion products imported from China, the extension of the operation to another 300 billion products would lead to grave consequences for footwear. The American brands of footwear warn that such a move would be extremely self-destructive, since most of the leading sportswear brands produce in China. Just as important would be the impact of this operation on consumers, which, as calculated by the FDRA – Footwear Distributors and Retailers of America association could cost American households 7 billion dollars. Even from CLIA- the China Leather Industry Association, the following comment arrives: “In the footwear industry, the USA imported around 2.4 billion pairs of shoes in 2018, of which 71.4% were from China – declared Li Yuzhong to World Footwear – If the new tariffs of 25% were applied to footwear, both the American and Chinese footwear industries would suffer from these additional costs, since the United States would not be able to find another supplier to fill this 70% gap”.