Trump’s 50% Tariffs Sow Fear Inside Indian Apparel Hub
Factories that invested in anticipation of a boom in orders are saddled with debt and unsold inventory.
When President Donald Trump first unveiled his “Liberation Day” tariffs in April, R.K. Sivasubramaniam, managing director at Raft Garments, had cause for optimism. His factory in the city of Tiruppur, India’s knitwear capital, makes millions of pairs of underwear that he sells for $1 apiece, with about half the output going to the US. Judging by the poster board Trump displayed in the Rose Garden, Indian exporters faced a tax well below that of rivals in Vietnam and Bangladesh.
After Trump’s election last year, Sivasubramaniam had been confident that Prime Minister Narendra Modi’s chummy relationship with the American president would deepen trading ties between India and its biggest customer—so much so that Sivasubramaniam took out a bank loan of about $2 million to buy sewing, printing and elastic-banding machinery.