U.S. footwear producers are urging President Donald Trump to invest in the future of the sector using revenue from the administration’s global tariff scheme.
On Monday, the U.S. Footwear Manufacturers Association (USFMA) sent an open letter to the president saying that duties on goods made overseas should be used to bolster the growth of American industry and the expansion of a national shoe supply chain.
According to the group’s executive director, Bill McCann, “American footwear manufacturing is poised for significant growth,” but the country’s manufacturers need aid in the form of funding and subsidies from the federal government to scale operations and pull market share away from foreign competitors.
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As it stands, American manufacturers account for about 25 million of the 2.7 billion pairs of shoes sold in the U.S. every year, meaning that they’re capturing less than 1 percent of the domestic market. USFMA aims to see U.S. makers produce at least 5 percent, or 135 million pairs, annually.
The trade group believes success hinges on intervention from Washington, with McCann writing that “a one-time federal investment” of $5 billion would be enough to jumpstart the momentum the sector needs to build toward that goal. The infusion of capital would generate thousands of direct and indirect manufacturing jobs, and the logistics sector would also receive more business as in-country commerce grows.
Funneling funding into footwear production would help grow the industry’s onshore supply chain and ensure its resilience—an objective manufacturers have already been working together to achieve, he said.
“Long-established footwear manufacturers are reinvesting in domestic operations, and a new generation of entrepreneurs and startups are entering the industry with energy and innovation,” McCann wrote. “Advances in materials and manufacturing processes, such as AI-powered automation and additive manufacturing, are helping to level the global playing field for American footwear manufacturers.”
But rebuilding the industry and advancing a new generation of innovators requires “significant capital investment, particularly in state-of-the-art manufacturing equipment,” McCann added. A portion of tariff revenue generated through taxes on imports from other countries should be “strategically reinvested to match private sector capital” in order to modernize the footwear supply chain with advanced technologies.
Strategically onshoring the production of soft goods is also a matter of national security, the letter said. Footwear, apparel and textile producers jumped into action during the Covid-19 pandemic to churn out life-saving personal protective equipment when masks and gowns were in limited supply.
According to McCann, vulnerabilities remain, especially when it comes to outfitting the U.S. armed forces. A recent Department of Defense wargame “identified significant constraints, bottlenecks, and limitations within the U.S. military’s clothing, textile, and footwear supply chains,” he wrote in the letter. The DoD study revealed that it would take at least a year and a half for the country’s military textile and footwear industrial base to ramp up to a point where it could meet the needs of the nation’s armed services in a real conflict scenario.
As it stands, up to half of all American servicemembers currently wear foreign-made “optional” boots, which are primarily made in Vietnam and China. McCann urged the passage of the bipartisan Better Outfitting Our Troops (BOOTS) Act in Congress, which “would close this loophole by requiring that all boots worn by all U.S. military personnel to be made in America.”
In addition to being delivered to the president, USFMA’s missive was also sent to Secretary of Defense Pete Hegseth, Secretary of Commerce Howard Lutnick, Secretary of the Treasury Scott Bessent and U.S. Trade Representative Ambassador Jamieson Greer.
“For the strength of our economy, for our ability to make things in America, and for the safety of our warfighters, we respectfully urge your Administration to support a manufacturing friendly tax code, reinvest tariff revenue from imported footwear to spur the production of domestic footwear, and ensure U.S. armed forces are equipped with best-in-class modern American-made footwear,” McCann wrote.
Earlier this spring, USFMA members across the footwear supply chain including New Balance, DESMA, Dela, Signet Mills and Rogers Foam took to Washington to meet with Congressional lawmakers about these goals.