In the debate over trade, stories about what’s left of the domestic textile industry tend to involve mills threatened by competition from China. But a company in Colorado called Cocona Labs has prospered by sending its products across the Pacific.
Cocona manufactures compounds used to make fabrics that are stitched into bedding, towels and clothing, especially for outdoor gear. The elements move moisture away from skin, making material warmer and faster drying. Cocona sends roughly two-thirds of the compounds it produces to China, where factories spin yarn, weave fabric and stitch linens and apparel. Many of the finished goods wind up back in the United States.
But the global trade war started by the Trump administration has shaken the economics of this business. Faced with uncertainty over tariffs, and especially retaliatory levies imposed by China, Cocona might start making changes. Among the possible actions: moving part of the production of its core offering, its so-called master batch made up of compounds, from the United States to factories in China.
“We are actively in the process of doing that,” the company’s chief executive, Jeff Bowman, said from his home in Bend, Ore.
President Trump has sold his trade war as the way to force international businesses to abandon China and bring factory work to the United States. Yet the experience of this small business, one with 20 employees around the world, attests to how tariffs can have the opposite effect, compelling the company to consider shifting its work to the other side of the Pacific.
“Is that crazy, or what?” Mr. Bowman said.
He is especially frustrated that the disruption of his business is playing out in the service of a goal that he dismisses as fanciful.
“There’s no way in hell that those garment factories and bedding factories are coming back to the United States in any significant quantity,” he said. “Unless American consumers are willing to pay a lot more for their goods.”
At 72, Mr. Bowman is a veteran of two worlds directly relevant to his current perch: mountaineering and the pursuit of ways to keep climbers more comfortable. An outdoor enthusiast, he worked for Bill Gore, the fabric pioneer who developed Gore-Tex, the lightweight, breathable and waterproof material.
He thought he was retired, living and rock climbing in Spain, when he was recruited to oversee Cocona in 2013. The company had been in business since the early 1990s.
Cocona’s operations are shrouded in trade secrets, making Mr. Bowman meager with details. In general terms, the process takes minerals mined in the American Southwest and sends them to the Mid-Atlantic, where they are turned into particles. Factories in the Upper Midwest and Southeast then turn those particles into master batch. Cocona exports those wares to companies that make yarn in China, Taiwan, India, Portugal, Turkey, Spain and El Salvador.
The trade war delivered by Mr. Trump on his return to office in January did not catch the company by surprise. Six years ago, as animosity between the United States and China intensified, Cocona began developing new markets in India. But its partnerships in China, some forged after decades of collaboration, could not be replaced.
“The infrastructure in China for textiles, there’s nothing really that compares to it anywhere else in the world,” Mr. Bowman said.
In April, Mr. Trump raised tariffs on Chinese imports to 145 percent. Beijing responded by elevating tariffs on American imports to 125 percent. Mr. Bowman had a problem. Fortunately, he discovered an immediate solution. His warehouse in Shanghai held enough master batch to satisfy orders without bringing in additional shipments.
In the months since, amid talk of trade negotiations, the Trump administration has lowered its tariffs on Chinese imports to 30 percent, while Beijing has reduced its retaliatory taxes to 10 percent. Still, Mr. Bowman remains concerned that fresh hostility could erupt without warning.
His customers are holding off on purchases, awaiting the clarity of future trade deals.
“Nobody’s ordering goods all through the supply chain,” he said, having just returned from a three-week reconnaissance trip to Asia. This was the situation everywhere, he added.
Faced with this threat, Mr. Bowman is slowing a series of projects aimed at expanding into new product lines. He is holding back on laboratory work and product testing.
“We’re all waiting to see what’s going to happen,” he said. But he could not wait to configure alternative plans. “Hope is not a strategy,” he added.
With that in mind, Mr. Bowman has been looking into how to shift some of the manufacturing stages of his master batch to Asia — to either China or India. That way, he can sell the product to his Chinese customers without tariffs.
“We could pull the trigger on that in 30 days,” he said.
He would be taking business from his American suppliers and moving it to Asia — all because of a policy aimed at bringing jobs home.
Peter S. Goodman is a reporter who covers the global economy. He writes about the intersection of economics and geopolitics, with particular emphasis on the consequences for people and their lives and livelihoods.
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