India’s Home Textile Exporters Welfare Association, a trade group for manufacturers of rugs, towels and other household linens, said Thursday that it’s been yoked with 17,094 crore Indian rupees—or roughly $2 billion—of orders currently under negotiation or otherwise stuck in limbo because of tariff turmoil stemming from the United States.
Speaking to Moneycontrol, a news outlet based in Mumbai and Uttar Pradesh, HEWAS director Vikas Singh Chauhan said that several buyers have threatened to cancel orders if suppliers don’t halve prices, leaving exporters with “no option but to honor their discount demands.”
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As one of India’s largest trading partners, the United States imported roughly $10.5 billion of its textiles and apparel in 2024, amounting to a 28.5 percent share of the South Asian nation’s exports of the same. On President Donald Trump’s so-called “Liberation Day” earlier this month, India had originally been assigned a reciprocal tariff rate of 26 or 27 percent—a hefty increase to be sure, but one that seemed a bargain compared with those imposed on competitors such as Bangladesh (at least 37 percent, if not 53 percent), Sri Lanka (44 percent), China (145 percent, or up to 245 percent) and Vietnam (46 percent).
But while India could still emerge with an edge when the 90-day pause on the most recent round of tariffs concludes, the impact of the 10 percent “universal” levy on all countries save China, plus the ongoing chaos and uncertainty that has left American importers largely paralyzed, are already leaving their mark, Chauhan said.
“We have also informed the union government that nearly 90 percent of exporters have been impacted by this tariff issue in our segment. My company alone has been hit as orders worth $2 million are stuck,” said Chauhan, who manufactures and exports carpets and bath accessories through Skier Export and Import Private Limited.
Considering the sliver-thin margins that manufacturers already work with, absorbing a 10 percent tariff, as some buyers might demand they do, is a hard ask, Rahul Mehta, chief mentor at Clothing Manufacturers Association of India and managing director of Creative Garments in Mumbai, told Moneycontrol.
There is also a growing concern about how American consumers will react to tariff-fueled higher prices on their products, he said, adding that “if their consumption goes down, then even if we offer the lowest costing goods, their overall consumption will go down and therefore, our demand will go down.”