Footwear retailers’ Priest says Trump tariffs cast gloom on sales

Footwear Distributors and Retailers of America CEO Matt Priest says that the Trump administration tariffs are having an uncertain impact on the holiday season and near future buying.

Priest said: “It's going to be uncertain for a while … and we're dealing with that every single day. I have these conversations every single day because of the uncertainty of the landscape of what sourcing will look like even a year from now.”

Priest spoke at the ‘Port of Long Beach Supply Chain Insight Series” hosted by Port of Long Beach Chief Operating Officer Dr. Noel Hacegaba on August 7th 2025.

Gloomy Forecast

The burden of the tariffs could have a negative impact on sales for the second half of 2025 including the holiday season: “So this year has been a roller coaster ride between retaliatory tariffs, the ongoing negotiations with China, there is a lot of uncertainty … And you could say we've all been waiting for the other shoe to drop. And so, you ask yourself: you're a small family importer, you're selling to Walmart and Target, the big retailers, but you're still a privately held small family importer. Will we survive because it's going to cost us a $1.5 million in duties to bring $1,000,000 worth of goods every month. No, we're not going to survive … if the status quo continues. And so, looking at the data, trying to understand where we are headed and trying to understand how much of this impacts the retailers and the brands … And so, … we're a little nervous about back half of the year.”

Tariffs have driven consumers to buy back-to-school footwear earlier: “A lot of what we are seeing right now in the back-to-school time-period, which we find ourselves in is this kind of frontloading of … purchasing because the importers frontloaded the imports coming in because of their concern around tariffs. And so, we are always looking for … what's the kind of mentality or the psychology around how consumers are behaving. In … our own surveys ... in partnership with the National Retail Federation (it is) pointed … out, back-to-school shoppers are buying way earlier than they normally do because they're concerned about tariffs.”

Higher Prices

Higher prices as a result of the tariffs are imminent: “I think right now …almost 80% of our members now have tariff product in the marketplace starting in July and August. So, I think … there is a delayed … impact… But I can tell you when … our duty bills (are) going to go from $3 billion as an industry annually to $5 billion in one year, someone is going to pay that. And when you have those added costs, that is going to drive down capital investment, employment and it's going to drive up prices … And then lastly, I'll say in July, we saw … a record number of searches in Google for footwear inflation.” The Footwear industry has surveyed consumers who support Donald Trump, and they oppose tariffs: “We've even surveyed the President's supporters on tariffs and how they feel about tariffs. And spoiler alert, they do not like tariffs, particularly on shoes, even if they think they're more broadly important geopolitically. And we can respect that.” Overall, Priest said, consumers have been “spooked” about tariffs since President Trump’s inauguration: “Around the inauguration, we start to see (from) our own internal sales numbers that we track weekly that consumers were spooked and they were spooked by tariffs.”

Sourcing Away from China Not Helpful

As importers moved production out of China to countries like Vietnam and India, they hoped that they would be shielded from the worst impact of the tariffs but that has not been the case: “So when I started this job in 2009, … 88% of our volume was from China. And so now we're 52 percent…In fact, this year we will have a 30 year low on our reliance on China. As it relates to footwear, of course, a lot of that is artificially driven by the tariff policy, but nevertheless, we have been diversifying out of China. And a lot of what drove us away from China was market based. China was rising, middle class was rising, worker shortages, less interest in working in low production facilities. They wanted to work in services or in higher production facilities, technology, et cetera. And so, we were moving into Vietnam pretty rapidly … we've had people shift to India and Brazil and now we have these added tariffs on both countries that are now 50%.”

Mexico a Challenge

Even sourcing from Mexico is a problem because of the Trump administration tariffs there: “Sourcing out of Mexico can be a challenge. The other challenges, the President's kind of continued focus on migration and fentanyl, which creates these tariffs pressure points that … create again, uncertainty even if you're sourcing with your neighbor.”