You pay more and get less, but Trump calls it winning. 
At China’s Wholesale Hub, U.S. Orders Have Suddenly Halted
The Wall Street Journal reports At China’s Wholesale Hub, U.S. Orders Have Suddenly Halted. One Example: Socks.
At the world’s biggest wholesale market in this eastern Chinese exporting hub, American clients have disappeared.
The Americans, or their representatives, used to show up to buy everything from Paw Patrol plushy dolls to Panama hats to toy sniper rifles. The famous Yiwu market here has 75,000 vendors across an area bigger than 1,000 American football fields; no other place sells so much stuff, so cheaply, and for decades, much of it went to the voracious U.S. consumer.
But with President Trump’s latest tariffs on China, which surged to 145% last week, very little of the merchandise makes economic sense for American buyers now.
Yet during a visit by a Wall Street Journal reporter, vendors said they were confident they would survive, sustained by sales to other buyers, and a bit perplexed.
For some everyday items, such as socks, they said it might not be easy.
“They could get things from other countries, but I don’t know if the other countries can produce them as well as China,” said Zhou Li of socks maker Shen Li, referring to the U.S. “China’s ability to make stuff is just seriously incredible.”
At Yiwu, which has five enormous districts, each with multistory buildings, part of District Four’s first floor is dedicated to socks. Most are made in a nearby city called Zhuji, which Chinese state media has called “the sock capital” of the world. One subdistrict of Zhuji produces some 25 billion pairs of socks a year, or about a third of global socks production, state media Xinhua said.
In 2023, China accounted for 56% of American imports of socks and stockings, data from the International Trade Center’s Trade Map showed.
Socks are a low-margin item, however. Lowering their prices to offset the 145% American tariffs—which are paid by the importers—wouldn’t be feasible for sock makers, the manufacturers said.
One sock maker at the wholesale market, Zhuji-based Today Vision, usually ships around half a million pairs to the U.S. each year. Orders for the U.S. market stopped coming after tariffs started moving higher this year, said Yang Aihua, who on Friday was waiting to hear back from one overseas client as Trump tariff news kept breaking.
Behind her, a sign displayed an ode to socks, in English: “A pair of socks, warm as spring sun, soft as sheep. The comfort of the toes feels like a gentle embrace…Every day it accompanies you, warm as home.”
Today Vision’s socks, produced by a couple hundred workers at a plant in Zhuji, are typically priced at around 25 cents or slightly higher per pair, said Yang, 46. About 30% of them go to the U.S., with the rest going to China and other overseas markets. Among Today Vision’s models, Americans prefer ones with simple colors and woven with 100% cotton, Yang said.
Other countries, especially Pakistan, Honduras and El Salvador, also make lots of socks, and can likely pick up some of the slack if orders no longer come from China in large volumes.
But China’s prices and speed, backed by an army of skilled workers, are hard to beat. American consumers might have to pay more to buy from other countries, and could face capacity constraints if they suddenly shift orders for millions of socks to other places.
At the stall for Shen Li, which is based in Zhuji, Zhou said her company produces about 1.2 million pairs of socks a month. It is a family business and relatively small by Chinese standards, with about 20 employees.
Before U.S. orders suddenly dried up recently, Shen Li used to ship about 200,000 pairs to the U.S. every three or four months, Zhou said. Besides plain cotton socks, her buyers that sell to the U.S. typically prefer socks with prints, Zhou said, pointing to her booth’s wall filled with hanging samples sporting designs such as full beer glasses, kiwi fruits, bearded Santas and TikTok logos.
“We are just one small factory, not one of those big ones. So imagine how much is produced by the entire Yiwu city—it means the economic power and the amount of production of the area is really astounding,” she said.
Making Sock Manufacturing Great Again Math
20 employees produce 1.2 million pairs.
To produce a billion socks would take 16,667 workers. This is output for the world, not just the US.
Perhaps we could get 3,000 jobs back making socks in the US.
Grok Estimated Price Range for US Production
- U.S. labor is significantly pricier than in developing countries. Labor costs in the U.S. can range from $1–$2 per pair for basic socks, compared to as low as $0.20 per pair in some overseas markets.
- Basic socks, large-scale: $1–$2 per pair.
- Mid-range (custom, smaller runs): $2–$4 per pair.
- Premium/custom socks: $5–$7+ per pair.
To produce socks in the US, about 3,000 people would benefit, and 340 million people would lose.
There is no economic reason to produce socks in the US.
Trump calls this winning.
Trump’s Plan to Make Manufacturing Great Again in Pictures
On a broader scale, this morning I discussed Trump’s Plan to Make Manufacturing Great Again in Pictures
The share of manufacturing employment keeps declining. What role did NAFTA play?
Please read that post. I discuss manufacturing in detail. Socks are one tiny example.
Also see China Halts Rare Earth Exports Desperately Needed by the US
China can and has responded to US tariffs.
“There is no economic reason to produce socks in the US.”
There is more than economics going on. Supply chain issues in the event China attacks Taiwan, and supply chains are disrupted, considering what the U.S. response may be to such an event. Nvidia is building factories in the U.S. and AMD will be manufacturing its EPYC 5th gen chip here as well. That’s not for the sake of lower prices, but access to the products themselves.
I guess all these storage sheds that they put up in the last 20 yrs that people have been storing all there treasures may be put to good use.
Even at 10%, Trump’s tariffs would represent the most regressive tax increase in 80 years. This regressive increase in the costs of essentials and everyday discretionary purchases will hit paycheck-to-paycheck households the hardest, and this will result in significant stress on the average American consumer at a time when they are just starting to get their heads above water following the 2021-2023 high inflation period.
Yet the vast majority of working class folk who voted for Trump are standing on tables clapping for how Trump is conducting his Consumer Tax War. They won’t even notice when the straight edge they are cutting their throats with costs 2.5X as much thanks to the tariffs.
I’ve got a drawer full of unused socks I never got around to wearing after I left the workforce. Should be worth big money. I knew it!
I understand that Meta, Micro$oft and Amazon are collaborating with Nvidia to develop AI enhanced socks. This will obsolete all other socks and make America the Global Leader in sock technology.
Because the A1 driven socks will tickle your toes?
That’s not the only part of your body they can tickle.
Perhaps Americans will no longer be able to afford quite so many sock puppets.
The solution of course, is to buy only the magnificent French socks with their wonderful colours and intriguing patterns. The costs be dammed.
Plenty of beautiful pattern socks on Temu. And still cheap!
Say goodbye to welfare for the mentally retarded. They can work for a living.
No way the politicians will actually begin working.
Well played
Winning?
Not!
US socks will be so expensive we’ll only be able to afford to wear one sock at a time.
Or, alternatively, go sockless one day and full-socked the next.
MAGA will be overpsocked to show support, wearing 3 pairs, while Dems will go sockless even in Birkemstocks.
It amazes me the number of people that are ok with slave labor in other countries so long as they can get their stuff cheap. I would prefer to have everything made in America. Yes things would cost more but we can have tradeoffs. Everyone who works get health care and get rid of all welfare benefits. If you don’t work you get NO healthcare, no food stamps, no free housing, etc. Eliminating these cost could significantly reduces our taxes to offset the additional spending. I understand there are some things the US doesn’t have and/or can’t manufacture so we will need some imports but we shoud limit them to the bare minimum.
While Americans gloat over their AAPL stock , buoyed by overseas slave labor and pat themselves on the back for bringing their fabric bags to the grocery store, China is building 1,000 coal fired power plants without scrubbers. Children dig cobalt by hand in the DRC, open pit Lithium mines scar Chile and fabric dyes are dumped into wetlands near textile factories in Bangladesh. Much global trade only “works” because of wage and environmental arbitrage. People in the West love their cheap crap because the slavery and environmental crimes needed to produce it are kept out of sight and out of mind.
Been that way for 5000 years, probably since the beginning of time. You need to decide if you’re going to be the slave or the master.
You can be a happy little grasshopper then comes along and a bird eats you. The bird is happy with it’s meal then comes along a cat and eats the bird. The cat is happy with his bird meal and along comes a coyote. The coyote is satiated with the cat but then comes along an eagle.
You need to decide to be the predator or the prey, that’s the way nature works.
You can profit off others or they’ll profit off you. Nothing will ever change that.
Where does the term “slave labor” come from anyway? In their countries, the workers are paid the going rate. It’s only “slave labor” when compared to the excessive wages paid in the USA.
$20/hr to flip burgers? PUH-LEEZE!
If you had to leave you family to live in a company dormitory to work your butt off for minimal pay you might understand the term slave labor.
So the US (before we got so rich) was employing slave labor in the coal mines of Appalachia?
As I understand it, those dorms with food and medical care supplied and being relatively clean are far better than what the majority of these workers lived in.
Again, the “minimal” pay you worry about is scale for their local economy.
You are a communist.
I mean that in the best possible way.
Sleep well comrades.
Big agree
Also, it’s not that things cost more in America, it’s that the value of our currency has been destroyed. All re-shoring does is expose this under the guise of higher cost.
I would prefer low prices to subsidizing the lifestyle of random American workers who aren’t capable of doing much except work on an assembly line.
Million of socks are made in the US right now.
But not in pairs!
Really, this is about the price of socks? Mish, don’t be ridiculous. We don’t have a yawning trade gap from socks and shirts. This whole thing is about industrial production of value-added goods. If this was socks and shirts, no one would care.
except for the sock farmers and the underwear miners…
Has the US Congress funded a CIA analysis of the potential sock gap?
Sure you can outsource the manufacture of socks to China and save a few dollars. Same with all textiles and footwear. But what happens when a war (economic or a shooting war) starts and you no longer have the manufacturing base to make your socks, nor the scale of the textile industry that you once had that all the ancillary industries such as the manufactures of sock making machines no longer exist in your country. Then how do you kit out your troops with socks (and everything else).
Same with so many industries that Mish sees as not critical. And even if they are not critical why the heck buy anything from China that will finance their stated goal of being the dominant world power.
Obvious solution: barefoot nekked soldiers.
So we become independent of the rest of the world so we can wage war? These comments get worse and worse.
It isn’t about the US going out and waging war but about having the industry needed if attacked. How would the US have fared if in 1941 it had the number of shipyards it has today? I’ll wager the US could kit out the 13 million who joined then with the socks that they needed. Today there might not be enough local sock factories, or enough factories making the textile machines to equip new factories.
For want of a nail (or sock) the battle will be lost.
Prices on Temu haven’t budged
Prices at Walmart holding steady
Fake news
You have the attention span of a 2 year old
It’s OK LilJohnson, now, tell us where the bad man touched you…
Another well thought out response. Roll on AI.
I doubt that Brazilian sock producers will be happy to hear that the Chinese are looking for new export markets.
OMG, socks will cost more! What we do?
The per capita credit card debt in the USA is $6360. It sounds like we’ll be going deeper into debt and paying more interest.
Wear sandals
With socks? True rebels do that.
And white socks.
The bountiful joy across the US elites over slave labor producing a thousand landfills of their shit goods is now finally slowing down. No thanks to Bill Clinton, Barrack Obama and Joe Biden who kept the the game going.
PS Mish you can buy shirts made in America at Hamilton in Houston. I started that after years of disgusting slave labor clothes that were crap.
America should have never granted Most Favored Nation trading status to Red China or passed NAFTA. Trump is trying to fix decades of treasonous bipartisan globalism.
China also has very reduced shipping rates because at the time it was granted, it was indeed a 3rd world country. But to have government to change something in the bureaucracy it’s almost impossible. The No.1 pollution on the planet will happen when the US decides to adopt the metric system (imagine the paperwork and computer work…).
Again, only the highest value mission critical industries should be involved with any kind of protection. Attacking Vietnam for selling more socks and cheap furniture to us than we sell BOEING planes to them is pure economic nonsense.
On the furniture side, I saved my life when I bought old American furniture at a total price lower than I had paid Amazon for the Chinese variety (I had to throw them away a month later due to continuous insane smell – formaldehyde offgassing maybe?).
Also, the American and European domestically made T-shirts I usually buy at gift shops have lasted for over a decade in the same shape… while the cheaper Chinese/Indonesian varieties look horrible after just one wash.
All my socks are already American made. Good quality too. Oh the Humanity.
Lucky you! You have enough money to pay 100-200 percent more for American-made socks than what you would have to pay for same-quality imported socks.
Darn tough socks.
*Made in Vermont.
Maker of the “Bernie mittens” made famous at potus first inauguration.
Warranty for life.
I haven’t used the Warranty only because haven’t worn out any of the six pairs I bought eleven years ago.
My wife didn’t like the fit or feel of a particular hiking type and they exchanged without fuss.
If you are a card carrying member of the MAGA cult you can buy them and tell your friends that it is another way to “OWN A LIB”.
Get it?
*unfortunately they source globally with emphasis on North America and United States.
how many child chinese slaves are needed to make the material for your socks?
Chinese multi colors underwears stained my laundry. U can get credit on a new Chinese computer, but u can’t on defective Buffett Hanes underwears. Amazon delay payment to small vendors for at least net 90/100 days, before dumping your Chinese computer back to the vendor. Basically it’s a memo business with a low markup to keep the antes working.
“But muh socks!”
But muh TikTok socks!
Jesus wept. How will we possibly survive?
I recall seeing a YouTube chap who tracked sales of Star Wars “merch” — mainly action dolls of all the myriad characters. Not at all a SW fan but I know that there was a kind of revolt against the last 3 films (deemed “too Woke” by the “fandom”) so there were literally hundreds if not thousands of cheap little plastic characters sitting on the shelves, never to be sold. Of course these were all made in China and then shipped over the Pacific and then moved around the USA on trucks — only to end up in a trash heap somewhere.
What a colossal waste in so many ways. If the tariffs put an end to this crap it’s worth paying a few bucks more for a pair of socks.
Mish, there is a math error on the Grok calculation.
20 employees produce 1.2 million PER MONTH, not per year (it must be massively automated). So those 20 people make 14,400,000 a year or 720,000 per employee.
If the US employee cost rose to $1-2 a sock it would mean each employee would be making 720,000 – 1,440,000 in salary. Pretty sure even US salaries aren’t that high 🙂
So I don’t think US costs would rise to 1-2 per sock. It also means it could easily come back to the USA because it’s automated.
Slavery and environmental concerns aside since cost is hardly what it seems to be. My USA made socks last 10 times as long as the Chinese made socks. How much of an externality exists in shipping cheap crap across the Pacific only for it to fail after a short period? What about the counterfeits in the supply chain? What recourse do you have against a company in China when your fire alarm doesn’t work?
have you really compared the quality? sounds like made up hyperbole.
Most fire alarm manufacturing is subcontracted out to China. Your recourse is with the American company (Honeywell, Siemens, Edwards, Eaton etc) whose logo is on the device, and the Agency (UL/ULC, TUV, ETL etc) that tests and approves it.
The market is going up today because trump is losing all credibility he had as he is now dropping tariffs on cars and tech. I bet these other countries are laughing at us.
The market is going up today because there are more buyers than sellers.
There is an equal number of buyers and sellers. In this case the buyers are aggressive in buying and the sellers are coy in selling.
Ready to sell out your country’s manufacturing sector so you can have cheap badly made socks and clothes? Having China make all your shoes and cloths is as bad and dangerous as having them make all your semiconductors. Think it through.
Socks = semiconductors?
A lot of your posts now make sense with your logic spelled out so directly here (maybe to a Trump child)
Anti martingale to cut losses since the effective tariffs rate setback..
Can’t do without clothes or shoes for long. When they wear out then what do you do?
I’ve seen Cast Away. I know what I’ll do.
Buy them somewhere else, like every other thing?
My backyard carrots did not come up this year. So I bought them at a grocery store. Do you want Trump to mandate everyone grow their own carrots in their backyard or do without?
How are shoes and clothes any different?
The “somewhere else” always seems to end up being in China, doesn’t it?
In a new French poll 62% of the people want to deport dangerous Muslims to French Polynesia or Saint Pierre Miquelon near Canada, north of Nova scotia
Saint Pierre Miquelon near Canada is for the illegals who refuse to go back to their country. It is cold, windy and generally miserable and they count on that to convince the illegals to go home. Since it is outside the EU the French government has more legal flexibility. The people of Saint Pierre Miquelon near Canada are fishermen who want nothing to do with the government’s plan.
Was that the island featured in the last episode of Peaky Blinders?
I hear Northern Greenland is nice.
probably 70% believe in nonsense like religion.
Edgy
Over time, publicly questioning someone else’s god has very negative consequences.
God worships at the church of the holy Trump nowadays.
I’ve thought it through. Ok not really, it came to me in a millisecond.
Here is my conclusion: having semicondictors made by China is more dangerous than having socks made by China because socks aren’t components in important devices and machines.
You didn’t think it through if it came in a millisecond.
Pay attention. Read what he wrote, then you think it through. For a change.
I used to wear Hanes crew socks and up until 2005 or so they were made in the USA and were 90% cotton and durable and the elastics held up.
They shipped manufacturing overseas after that, but they also kept reducing the quality and making them thinner and with much less cotton and failure prone elastics.
I stopped buying them about 10 years ago because the quality became so poor.
You can still find those “vintage” Hanes socks on ebay still new in the package and they cost an arm and a leg but people are buying them.
Same is true with Gold Toe. That was my jam in the 1990s. They never blew out and made in USA. They shipped to asia and quality disappeared. I remember talking to gold toe CS to voice displeasure. I guess they didnt listen….
simonnomis
I wear sandals. Almost exclusively.
Let’s have a shoe and sock Bonfire in front of the White House.
Who’s with me?
I prefer clogs for Northern winters.
They burn much better than shoes – and better for the environment.
I should add, inflation of the dollar is what caused this. I just bought cereal for the first time in a while and the boxes are so thin they don’t even stand up. It’s shameful. Blame the reckless money creation.
Or the manufacturer.
Those aren’t boxes; they are bags. Buyer beware.
thank you for sharing your view on socks with us.
Socks today, war machines tomorrow. The US appears to be treated more like a colony of CN versus sovereign nation, TIme to wake up and decide what future you want for your kids and grandkids. TIme to right the ship and reverse the selling out of our industries for cheap [insert consumer good of your choice]. No one bothered to fix asymmetric trading for years. Or the reverse opium war on every street in america. Maybe because the Ds and the Rs in DC were getting their pockets lines with pure gold business cards from CCP friends? What % of our leaders have been elite captured?
You subscribe to Trump BS on winners and losers.
Economic illiteracy as explained.
Mish appreciate you letting me comment on your blog despite the harsh treatment. But hey its your platform. Anyway we are in real trouble when our economic “literates” got us into a situation of accruing $1T/100 days and out number 1 export is debt. You look advanced in age so maybe you dont care about the future?
Kirkland socks are made in the USA, great quality and good price. We will be fine.
Darn Good socks made in Vermont are the best. Expensive yes but a pair will outlast your CN multipack for many yea
Exactly what we heard about “Made in Japan” for years
Then Japanese cars suddenly far better than anything from Detroit.
Now BYD produces EVs nearly as good as Tesla for half the price
You ready to hand over the world reserve currency to RMB? Who buys US debt then? What is your Keynesian solution? Burn it all down man!
Are you being purposely sarcastic? Or are you really this much of an economic moron?
Are you new here? Because Mish has posted so many times about how China will never have the world’s reserve currency
If the main argument for having the reserve currency is that we can run up more debt, that’s not much of an argument.
Running up more debt because the usd is reserve currency is not much of an argument.
exactly correct Mish
I will be there next Xmas. What’s the address?
My underwear and socks are made in France from tissue woven from imported cotton. Comfortable and lasts a long time.
Most probably by an Algerian in a sweatshop in Marseille.
Algerians don’t work. They just collect welfare.
and make babies.
I go to Costco now and then but dislike the realization that they’ve doubled down on woke idiocy.
Costco has been a left wing operation since forever. That whole annual membership fee is part of their brainwashing to make people feel they’re part of a special club. It’s cultish.
Is that a worthwhile trade — abandoning what we do well (services, along with dependable rule of law) for a rigged system for sycophants and very corrupt rewards distributions? That system took centuries to build, and is being compromised in months.
Trump is also ruining plenty of small businesses. Here is one heart-wrenching story:
https://www.nytimes.com/2025/04/14/podcasts/the-daily/trump-tariff-small-business-busy-baby.html
The big tech companies obviously have it easier to get a hearing from Trump.
I searched for this using Google and Perplexity and didn’t find anything. Do you know if Trump’s plans exempt clothing made under rule 807 (cut here in US, assemble elsewhere)? A lot of our clothing is made under this rule and if it goes away, I can only imagine how expensive clothing is going to get.
Sock it to ’em. It’s the Tidy whities that have some in an uproar.
Chicks love guys with 30 year old underwear because they know they’re frugal. There’s nothing women love more than frugality.
I assume you refer to American females. Your frugality would be frowned upon in Europe, and elsewhere I would respectfully suggest.
Chinese Officials Lock Virus Infected Persons Inside Their Apartments! – MishTalk
yes siree bob!
and the mobile crematorium combustion satellite photos.
Actually I have come to the conclusion this is “much ado about not much.” Tariffs on/off/on – basically they will settle down, the cost will be eaten by producers, importers and the public, but who cares if soxs go up 10%. I am more impressed that Nvdia is now going to spend 500 BILLION to manufacture in Phoenix, and Novartis announced a 23 BILLION deal to manufactured critical drugs in the USA. Trump is actually getting some good consessions – I am NOT a big Trump fan, but sometimes things need to get a kick in the butt.
I would rather tell chips act that Trump is dismantling by firing employees managing it than what Trump is doing.
Yep I just bought everything I need in the near future.
Yeah, me too. The local Walmart won’t have the $205 HP Scarlet Red laptop until the 21st, but I loaded up on Levi’s, sneakers, work boots, And1 boxer briefs, and summer & winter socks. I bought some Wrangler shirts with the button snaps and those said Made in Greensboro, though I suspect there are imported components. Regardless, we’re probably looking at higher prices now that the cheap competition is gone, not to mention inflation of the currency.
Oatmeal and toilet paper.
A shopping we will go! After Ukraine, Trump is now eyeing Pakistan’s rare mineralshttps://www.independent.co.uk/asia/south-asia/us-pakistan-minerals-deal-ukraine-rare-minerals-b2730759.html
We had their president imprisoned on trumped up charges, so I guess anything’s possible.