In a global sourcing world centered on far-flung supply chains often built on illegal subsidies and trade practices, customs fraud and duty evasion, and underpriced goods, one key U.S. free trade agreement has remained a linchpin for American textile and apparel manufacturers’ competitiveness and job growth and domestic supply chain stability.
The United States-Mexico-Canada Agreement, also known as USMCA, is a critical agreement for the U.S. textile industry that I represent.
This supply chain between our three countries stretches back 32 years to the inception of the North American Free Trade Agreement, which was renegotiated during President Donald Trump‘s first term and rebranded as USMCA.
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Keeping the USMCA agreement as a trilateral trade deal is incredibly important to our industry. Mexico and Canada represent our No. 1 and No. 2 export markets for U.S. textiles, which allows the U.S. supply chain to compete directly against China and Asia and a flood of predatory trade practices.
Conversely, breaking the integrated trade agreement into separate bilateral trade deals, as some high-level administration officials have suggested, would be devastating to the American textile and apparel supply chain that supports more than 450,000 jobs in the U.S. and produced $60.1 billion in textile shipments in 2025.
Domestic textile manufacturers play an essential and strategic role in safeguarding U.S. national security by providing high-tech, functional components to the U.S. government, including more than $1.8 billion worth of vital uniforms and equipment for our armed forces annually.
Unfortunately, the U.S. textile industry is in the midst of a prolonged and historically severe economic downturn. Over the past 2 1/2 years, this critical sector has closed 41 U.S. factories, leaving a devastating impact on numerous communities that depend on this industry as a main source of employment.
Against this backdrop, the USMCA provides an invaluable free trade area that continues to help gird the U.S. textile industry against low-priced imports from Asia, despite the current downturn.
Our industry ships $11.6 billion, or 53%, of its total global textile exports to Mexico and Canada — by far the largest export markets for American textile producers. Textile and apparel trade between the U.S. and its USMCA partners totaled $19.2 billion in 2025, and these countries spurred significant textile investment and employment at home.
Ahead of a formal and mandated review between the U.S. and our USMCA trade partners in July, we are urging the Trump administration and Congress to preserve and extend the agreement as a trilateral trade deal.
We urge the administration to make the following improvements to the USMCA trade deal:
Preserving and strengthening the agreement’s yarn-forward rule of origin, by limiting harmful exceptions to the rule, such as tariff preference levels (allowing the use of textiles outside of the USMCA bloc) and single transformation rules that weaken regional supply chains and disadvantage U.S. manufacturers; allowing some exceptions to the yarn-forward rule when U.S. producers source inputs not readily available within the bloc, such as acrylic, to enhance the competitiveness of U.S. manufacturers; and strengthening USMCA customs enforcement cooperation creation of a public blacklist of repeat offenders of trade laws, and intensifying punishment of customs offenders in all three countries.
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Our industry also commends the administration for providing immediate relief from global tariffs through exemptions for qualifying textile and apparel trade under USMCA and another important trade deal, the Dominican Republic-Central America Free Trade Agreement. These exemptions must remain in place to help continue incentivizing brands and retailers to onshore more apparel production to the region and the U.S.
By strengthening the USMCA and implementing the right America First trade policy approaches, the domestic textile industry can grow jobs in the U.S., onshore production, and increase exports and investments.
Kimberly Glas is the president and CEO of the National Council of Textile Organizations and former deputy assistant secretary for textiles, consumer goods, and materials at the Commerce Department.