Vietnam saw footwear exports to the U.S. fall in September — one month after the new tariff increase was implemented in August.

Vietnam is currently the dominant producer of athletic performance shoes. Customs data from Vietnam’s Ministry of Finance indicated that Vietnam’s footwear exports to the U.S. were $611 million. That reflects a 27.3 percent drop in Vietnamese footwear exports that totaled $840 million in August.

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American President Donald J. Trump said in April that he was implementing sweeping reciprocal tariffs. At the time, the new total for Vietnam was set at 46 percent, which supposedly represented a “discount” to the 90 percent the country had levied on U.S. exports.

Vietnam became the largest beneficiary when footwear firms began diversifying out of China starting in 2019. That was during Trump’s first term when he began hiking duties on Chinese imports to the U.S. Vietnam is now the largest sneaker manufacturer, with Nike producing about 50 percent of its footwear there and Adidas at nearly 40 percent.

By July, a preliminary U.S.-Vietnam trade deal — the final details still need to be negotiated, and one source told Footwear News last month that those talks remain “ongoing” — set the reciprocal tariff rate at 20 percent. At the time, it wasn’t immediately clear whether the new rate would be tacked onto existing duties. It has since been learned that the reciprocal tariff is on top of existing rates.

On Holding AG’s CEO Martin Hoffmann said during the firm’s second quarter earnings conference call in August that his firm is paying a 40 percent tariff rate. And while he’s not thrilled about the higher rate, Hoffmann didn’t seem worried. He told analysts that as a fast-growing, premium brand, the company has multiple opportunities to compensate for the higher costs. Those include higher prices on some products, as well as more innovative product that can sustain higher price points and consequently drive more gross profit margin. He also said that the brand, which has implemented selective price increases, still hadn’t needed to speak with either retail or factory partners regarding mitigation efforts.

One sneaker brand that began reducing inventory purchases back in May was Allbirds. Most of the footwear company’s manufacturing base is in Vietnam. The brand said it has reduced its inventory purchases for fall ’25 as well as its buy plans for spring ’26. The move was meant to be a proactive stance at managing potential cost of goods pressure. The company also planned for newer product offerings for fall that would allow it to go to market with slightly higher price points and higher margin targets.

Crocs Inc. sources 47 percent of its footwear from Vietnam for U.S. market. When the firm posted second-quarter earnings results in August, CEO Andrew Rees said a portion of its customer base was no longer going to stores, a trend that has impacted the shoe firm’s wholesale business. The parent company of the Crocs and Hey Dude brands, Rees said business was being planned conservatively, which included “proactively pulling back on receipts across both brands for the second half, primarily in the U.S.”

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