July 28, 2026 This week in focus: Major trade announcements, new tariffs, and driving counterfeit awareness during the back-to-school season! All this and the industry's latest news in today’s Weekly Brief.
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What Could Better Brand-Supplier Relationships Look Like? July 23: In April, the American Apparel & Footwear Association (AAFA) released a guide to protecting workers from heat stress, and is now working with the FPC on an implementation guide that will be published later this year. “A central priority in developing this guidance has been bringing industry stakeholders together to collaborate on practical, actionable solutions to heat stress. The FPC brings irreplaceable expertise in navigating the complex relationships between producers and manufacturers, offering critical insights that continue to inform and strengthen the development of our implementation guide,” says the AAFA’s executive vice president Nate Herman. (Source: Vogue Business) |
How Extreme Heat Is Shifting Corporate Bottom Lines July 23: ... As record-breaking summer temperatures regularly cause regional infrastructure to buckle, the macroeconomic toll is mounting. Yet that climate burden isn’t felt evenly. While intense heat disrupts operations for a variety of industries, it also creates business opportunities for others. (Source: Bloomberg) |
California Textile EPR Faces Court Test July 22: ... “The Responsible Textile Recovery Act is a critical step towards circularity, but it must be implemented in line with the statute’s own safeguards,” said Stephen Lamar, president and chief executive of the American Apparel & Footwear Association. “Our petition asks the court to ensure that the chosen producer responsibility organization is genuinely producer‑formed, independently governed and financially robust enough to deliver on textile recycling.” (Source: Ecotextile News) |
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What to Know About Trump’s Latest Tariffs July 24: ... On Friday, [President Trump] rolled out new double-digit tariffs on imports from 60 U.S. trading partners, ostensibly for failing to do enough to prevent imports produced by forced labor. But the breadth of the levies — they cover 99% of U.S. imports — suggests another motivation: replacing worldwide tariffs that Trump imposed last year only to see them struck down by the Supreme Court in February. (Source: Associated Press) |
Trump’s New Tariffs Hit with Lawsuit July 24: ... Just like the previous statutes Trump invoked, the lawsuit argues the administration is now stretching Section 301 of the Trade Act of 1974 too far. “It is not a freestanding authorization to tax substantially all imports from substantially all trading partners,” the lawsuit reads. (Source: The Hill) |
Dispute Over Trump Tariffs Snarls Russia Sanctions Deal July 24: A dispute between President Trump and Democrats in Congress over his tariff authority has emerged as the biggest obstacle to legislation imposing sweeping new sanctions on Russia, threatening bipartisan hopes to move quickly after Senator Lindsey Graham’s death on a bill he championed. (Source: The New York Times) |
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Vietnam Nets 50,000 Pairs of Fake [...] Shoes in Trade Fraud Bust July 24: Trade officials discovered nearly 50,000 pairs of allegedly fake Nike Inc. shoes being prepared for export in a raid on a Ho Chi Minh City factory, as Vietnam ramps up a counterfeit goods crackdown under pressure from the U.S. (Source: Fashion Network) |
Senate Confirms Five New USITC Commissioners, Restoring Full Bench July 20: On July 16, 2026, the U.S. Senate confirmed five nominees to serve as Commissioners of the U.S. International Trade Commission (“USITC” or “Commission”) by voice vote, restoring the agency to its full six-member panel for the first time in years. The Senate Finance Committee had approved all five nominations with large bipartisan support the day prior. (Source: JD Supra) |
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Oritain Industry Chat: In the latest AAFA Industry Chat, AAFA President and CEO Steve Lamar and Oritain’s Senior Vice President of Sales Americas & Global AI Sales Transformation, Shaun Bossons discussed how apparel and footwear companies are rethinking supply chain risks as transparency becomes a business necessity tied to resilience, compliance, and customer trust. Tariffs, geopolitical shifts, and changing sourcing strategies go hand in hand with increased supply chain complexity and new visibility challenges. Watch now! |
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New tariffs and tariff threats: Another whirlwind week in trade updates. Starting last week, the Office of the U.S. Trade Representative (USTR) announced the U.S. will impose Section 338 tariffs on U.S. imports from Canada on a variety of products, including some travel goods, textiles, apparel, footwear, and hats, starting August 19.
On July 22, USTR imposed a 25 percent Section 301 tariff on certain imports from Brazil, including all apparel and footwear. AAFA's Beth Hughes testified before the U.S. Office of the Trade Representative (USTR) Hearing on Brazil earlier this month. Last Thursday, AAFA’s Audrey Clark testified in support of the African Growth and Opportunity Act (AGOA), advocating for a 15-year renewal, preservation of the third-country fabric provision, and targeted program reforms to strengthen U.S.-Africa trade. Thursday evening, the Trump administration announced action in the Section 301 forced labor investigation. Effective less than seven hours later (Friday morning at 12:01 AM), the Trump Administration imposed new tariffs of 10% and 12.5% on goods from 60 trading partners (59 countries and the 27 countries in the European Union). The justification issued is that these trading partners are taking insufficient steps to block goods imported into or transiting their countries that are made with forced labor. As we anticipate further trade policy announcements in the coming weeks, members can get involved in AAFA's Forced Labor Working Group, Social Responsibility Committee, Trade and Customs Committee, and Transportation Team. For additional opportunities to engage with AAFA, fellow industry leaders, and to advocate for the industry, talk to Beth Hughes, Nate Herman, or Maureen Storch. |
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| Harnest is a manufacturer of Tier 2 and Tier 3 category products such as threads, trims, elastics, labels, packaging, offset printing, yarn dyeing, and covered yarn. |
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August-September Aug. 19 | Online: Webinar: Intelligent Automation: Speed and Responsibility — Can Our Industry Have Both? Aug. 26 | Online: Briefing: Responsible Sourcing in the Face of Tariffs* Aug. 26 | Online: USCTP x Oritain: Raising the Bar for Sustainability in Apparel Sept. 2 | Online: Webinar: CPSC eFiling Is Live: Turning Certificate Chaos into an Audit-Ready Workflow Sept. 9 | Online: Webinar: Getting Data-Ready for the Next Wave of Regulation Sept. 14 | Online: Webinar: PFAS Compliance: From Test Result to Defensible Claim Sept. 15-16 | In-Person: Government Contractors Forum Sept. 23 | Online: Webinar: The DPP Countdown: Is Your Product Data Ready? Sept. 30 | Online: Webinar: Better Fit Starts With Better Data *Member-only content Wednesday, September 2
2:00 PM ET to 3:00 PM ET | Online |
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Webinar: CPSC eFiling Is Live: Turning Certificate Chaos into an Audit-Ready Workflow |
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As margin pressure and tariff volatility continue to reshape global trade, importers are placing greater focus on what happens after contracts are signed. This educational session explores how leading importers are strengthening contract-to-cash discipline across international freight operations.
Using practical shipper examples, the session will examine how organizations improve forecast accuracy, reduce cost leakage from misapplied contract terms, and bring greater structure to detention, demurrage, chassis, and yard storage management. The discussion will also address how procurement, logistics, and finance teams can better align around shared data to support day-to-day execution and longer-term decision-making.
Attendees will gain a practical framework for identifying where cost leakage occurs, prioritizing process improvements, and applying these practices within their own international supply chains.
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Attendees of this webinar will learn: What changed on July 8, what is in scope (including Section 321), the FTZ Jan. 2027 date, and what CPSC's "warnings-not-rejections" enforcement posture really means in practice. How to use the CPSC HTS guidance list to identify flagged products and connect certificate data to products, suppliers, and entry lines at catalog scale—so compliance survives audits without manual bottlenecks. How a connected data foundation plus a trusted broker relationship creates durable regulatory resilience: the same product-to-entry-line intelligence and filing workflow that solves CPSC eFiling positions importers for the next PGA message set, the next agency mandate, and the next rule change—instead of rebuilding from scratch each time.
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Courtney Kantowski Technical Account Management Team Lead, Logistics
Altana
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| Ania Wierzbowska Fuller
Director of Consulting and Regulatory Affairs
A.N. Deringer
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Audrey Clark
Trade and Transportation Specialist
AAFA |
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