Recently-released full-year 2020 US apparel import data shows total imports down 16.4 percent with a 23.6 percent drop in shipments from China, the largest supplier of apparel to the US.

This is the third successive year apparel shipments from China to the US have fallen, with the longer-term impacts of trade war tariffs compounded in 2020 with lower orders for apparel imports overall.

Latest figures for the month of December, released by the US Department of Commerce’s Office of Textiles and Apparel showed an overall drop in volume of US apparel imports from all sources of 6.5 percent month-on-month and 1.4 percent on the year.

December shipments from China and Vietnam (the second largest source of apparel imports to the US) both fell slightly year-on-year, while third-biggest supplier, Bangladesh grew its year-on-year import volumes 5.5 percent.