Rising Tariffs, Falling Imports, and the Push for Manufacturing Innovation

This week, the first container ships subject to Trump’s revived tariffs began arriving at U.S Ports. The reception was as cold as it was calculated. Faced with duties climbing to 145%, importers have not hesitated to halt shipments altogether. The economic rationale is simple: at these levels, imports are unaffordable, and container volumes are collapsing as a result. The port of Los Angeles has reported a 50% drop in Chinese shipments and a wave of cancelled sailings. It’s now, in many cases, cheaper to warehouse goods in China than to bring them into the U.S. under current cost structures.

The impacts are likely to be immediate and severe – although their duration is unpredictable. The U.S. retail sector, still buffered in part by inventory accrued prior to the imposition of tariffs, is rapidly depleting its reserves. By mid-year, the effects will be more noticeably consumer-facing. Inventories will be distorted, with oversupply in irrelevant SKUs and a conspicuous absence of in-demand items that would usually have been prime targets for replenishment. Variety and abundance could quickly give way to scarcity, and prices are almost certain to rise to reflect the imbalance. Our US readers will still see products on shelves – just not necessarily the ones they want.

More importantly, what might this market shift herald for American brands, retailers, and the companies that supply them?

Analysts expect total U.S. imports – from across all global destinations – to fall by at least 20% in the second half of 2025. Imports from China are facing even sharper declines, with some forecasts pointing to a potential 80% drop in imported goods. The Footwear Distributors and Retailers of America (FDRA) is already raising red flags. In a formal letter to the president last week – signed by the biggest names in the industry – the group warned that without exemptions, hundreds of footwear businesses could be at risk of shutting down due to the combination of input cost increases and difficulties in bringing product into the country.

But tariffs aren’t just making things more expensive – they’re also changing the logic of how global supply chains work in the here and now, with the looming challenge of how those systems will adapt when (or if) these import restrictions are removed or weakened. Systems built for fast, low-cost international shipping are now facing political and economic roadlocks that challenge their very foundations.

This isn’t just a trade dispute. It’s a structural shift in how, where, and whether goods make it to U.S. shelves at all, and while other notable economies like the UK and India are forging historic deals of their own to work around a reliance on the US as a consumption market, redirecting goods intended for one market to another is more than just a question of rerouting planes and boats. Different regions are culturally and economically different, and regionalised assortments designed for one demographic are not necessarily going to find a fit elsewhere

As a case in point: brands and retailers are trying to adapt, responding with a patchwork of strategies: shifting production to countries outside the tariff line of fire, renegotiating supplier terms, and trimming assortments to focus on higher margin or faster moving products, depending on where those products are intended to be sold.

But most of these are contingency plans, not permanent fixes. If the current disruptions continue, temporary shortages could turn into long term instability as brands begin to question the logic of selling into the USA if the hurdles are regulatory, cultural, economic, and perennially unpredictable.

We’ve written before about the viability of domestic production stepping in to fill the void that this kind of considered pullback would leave, and the reality remains that making fashion, footwear, and accessories at high volumes in consumption markets is unlikely to be realistically scalable in the near future. And questions still hang over the mid and longer-term as well.

This week, though, British footwear company Vivobarefoot showcases a different approach. Their new Vivobiome Tabi Gen 01 is a 3D-printed sandal that’s custom made for each customer. Instead of relying on factories overseas, or mass production in the UK, Vivobarefoot uses local smart production and digital footscans to make each pair.

We’ve seen a lot of 3D printed footwear from hobbyists, startups, and pilots within major shoe brands, but this is seemingly more than a tech demo. It’s a demonstration of the kind of innovation that’s highly likely to be required in order to overcome the prevailing offshore model.

While Vivobarefoot’s model is still nascent and not yet scalable for mass markets, it represents a commercialised proof of concept that also happens to be incredibly well-calibrated to the moment. The VivoBiome isn’t going to flood shelves and save back-to-school season. It’s limited in scale, high in cost, and commercially emergent. But that’s not the point. It’s a demonstration that a viable alternative to globally outsourced, container dependent production exists – one that happens, through a combination of prescience and foresight, to align with future needs more than present volume.

In a high volatility trade environment, having any capacity for localised production – even limited – offers some value. Like most automated, intelligent domestic production, think of this less as a replacement for mass manufacturing and more as a way to reach a specific cohort of consumers today, and a hedge against uncertainty tomorrow. If shipping lanes freeze, for instance,, brands with additive manufacturing capabilities can still fulfil niche orders, retain customer engagement, and maintain some degree of supply continuity. They won’t be firing on all cylinders, but the proverbial shelves won’t sit empty.

What’s more, as customisation, sustainability, and ethical production become core consumer demands, the appeal of localised, made-to-order tech should only grow. Even as we speak, the ecosystem needed to support on-demand production is improving, and has been year over year. It’s not just shoes. Furniture, tools, even garments are seemingly inching towards similar models. The entire infrastructure is quietly maturing, but this isn’t about 2025, it’s about 2030 and beyond.

As we saw with 3D design before and during Covid, crisis doesn’t always create innovation. More often, it accelerates what’s already in motion by proving out the principles that the pioneers already knew. The journey of 3D in apparel, for instance, has been a long and arduous one, but the innovators behind it – and the brands that were working to pioneer it – saw ahead of time what the COVID pandemic would quickly bring to everyone else’s attention: that having digital processes can be a better way to keep things moving, especially at a time when the physical alternative becomes strained, or goes away.

The same principle is starting to apply here, only this time it’s about production, not just design. Trade disruption isn’t inventing new innovation, it’s amplifying the need for solutions that have already been tested under other circumstances.

So 3D-printed sandals aren’t the solution to the current global trade issues – or to the uncertainty that’s going to shape the near-term future of sourcing. But just like 3D fashion design during COVID, they offer a glimpse of how quickly innovation moves from fringe to function when the world gives you no other choice.