Nike, Adidas, Puma, Steve Madden, Caleres + Dozens More Companies Urge Trump to Exempt Shoes From Tariffs in FDRA Letter
The footwear industry is making sure its voice is heard in Washington.
The Footwear Distributors and Retailers of America (FDRA), along with more than 80 leading U.S. footwear firms, on Tuesday sent a letter to U.S. President Donald J. Trump urging him to exempt footwear from his administration’s reciprocal tariff plan.
“We are hit particularly hard by the tariff actions, because the U.S. government already places a
significant tariff burden on our industry before any new tariffs are added,” the letter stated. It cited as one example children’s shoes, which has “rates of 20 percent, 37.5 percent, and higher, before accounting for the reciprocal tariffs.” The letter also noted that the new reciprocal rates are “stacked on top of the existing high footwear tariff rates,” resulting in many American footwear companies now having to pay tariffs ranging from “more than 150 percent to nearly 220 percent.”
Significant price increases preclude American consumers from having affordable footwear options, the letter stated. More importantly, the letter emphasized that “these tariffs will not drive shoe manufacturing back to the U.S.” On the contrary, the footwear firms emphasized that the new tariffs will remove the “business certainty” that is needed to take on significant capital investment required to both plan for sourcing shifts and invest in the machinery and materials needed to produce shoes in the U.S.
Watch on FN
“We are in fact the one industry where tariffs do not significantly increase domestic production; tariffs just become a major impact at the cash register for every family,” the letter stated. Moreover, many footwear firms don’t even know how they’re going to pay the costs of already shipped merchandise that’s now arriving on U.S. shores, and the inability to pay would place many U.S. footwear businesses “at imminent risk.”
The companies that signed the letter—including Adidas, Brooks, Caleres, Columbia Sportswear, Crocs, Designer Brands, Genesco, Nike, Puma, Rocky Brands, Skechers, Steve Madden, Under Armour, VF Corp., and Wolverine Worldwide, among others—added that they are “deeply concerned about imminent U.S. footwear job losses, added costs for consumers, and reduced consumer spending that will fundamentally hamper our industry and harm the entire U.S. economy.”
The signers of the letter are seeking a more “targeted” approach—one that focuses on strategic items rather than basic consumer goods—that would advance critical national security imperatives without causing unnecessary pain to American families.”
The letter to Trump was also sent to Howard W. Lutnick, U.S. Secretary of Commerce, Jamieson Greet, U.S. Trade Representative, and Scott Bessent, U.S. Secretary of the Treasury.
Higher tariffs have been a growing concern since Trump won the presidential election last November. Crocs CEO Andrew Rees told investors in February during a conference call on fourth quarter earnings results that the firm was embedding tariff increases on goods from China and Mexico, based on then-expected rates that were presumed to stay in place for the remainder of 2025. FDRA data showed that footwear sales plunged 26.2 percent for the week ended Feb. 22 from year-ago levels on fears over tariff increases.
But then Trump disclosed his administration’s plans to implement reciprocal tariffs on April 2, with the new rates blowing existing duty estimates out of the water as footwear firms scrambled to figure out how to adjust their business model to take into account double-digit percent rate increases.
And if the reciprocal tariffs weren’t bad enough, Trump went on to hike duties on goods from China, with some as high as 145 percent. Currently, there is a 90-day pause on the reciprocal increases, while keeping a universal base increase of 10 percent, on the hopes that other nations will come to the table to negotiate an improved trade deal that benefits the U.S. The exception is China, for which there is no 90-day pause.
Meanwhile, footwear industry executives have formed a forward-thinking research think tank, Footwear Innovation Foundation, that will help the shoe sector become more proactive in reshaping the future of footwear in the U.S.
