(Reuters) – Steven Madden executives said on Thursday the company was working quickly to shift product sourcing out of China to other countries after Donald Trump’s U.S. presidential election victory.
In February, Trump said if he came to power, he would impose tariffs on China again, which could exceed 60%, putting a lot of strain on retail companies that heavily rely on imports from the region.
Steven Madden executives said on a post earnings call the company had already been working on the potential scenario that would lead it to move good out of China more quickly, and been developing factory bases in other countries such as Cambodia, Vietnam, Mexico and Brazil.
“Just under half of our current business would be potentially subject to tariffs on Chinese imports (if Trump decides to impose tariffs when he takes office in January),” a company executive said.
“Our goal over the next year is to reduce the percentage of goods we source from China by approximately 40% to 45%,” the executive added.
(Reporting by Ananya Mariam Rajesh in Bengaluru; Editing by Shinjini Ganguli)