Gap, Nike and Levi's took years to diversify from China. Now sky high tariffs on nations like Vietnam are ruining plans
At the Shoptalk retail industry conference last week, Gap Inc CEO Richard Dickson touted the apparel maker's limited exposure to China and the tariffs about to be imposed on imports from there after years of efforts to diversify its supplier base.
"Big credit goes to our supply chains. We've been working on diversifying our manufacturer footprint for quite some time. Less than 10% of our product is coming out of China," said Dickson. Now Gap's biggest supplier country is Vietnam, followed by India and Indonesia, all well ahead of China.
Dickson's counterpart at Levi Strauss & Co Michelle Gass echoed the reduced exposure to China at Shoptalk too, saying "Of what we know today, right now it is fairly minimal."
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But Dickson and Gass' sanguine reactions of course came before the Trump Administration's announcement on Wednesday that it planned to impose punitive tariffs on 60 countries, including across-the-board levies of 46% on imports from Vietnam and 26% from India. Suddenly, Gap Inc and Levi's don't seem inoculated at all from Trump's tariff war with the rest of the world.
https://finance.yahoo.com/news/gap-nike-levi-took-years-160843472.html
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