America’s escalating trade barriers are choking the life out of Tamil Nadu’s premier textile clusters in Coimbatore and Tirupur. A torrent of job losses—numbering in the tens of thousands—has followed a brutal export downturn triggered by punitive tariffs.
Data from the Apparel Export Promotion Council reveals a 28 percent plunge in US-bound shipments, crippling an industry that thrived on low-cost, high-volume production. Family-run factories, ill-equipped to absorb shocks, are folding at an alarming rate. Association head V. Thiru noted, ‘Survival mode is the new normal; expansion dreams are dead.’
Communities are fracturing under the strain. Daily-wage earners face hunger, while suppliers of yarn, dyes, and machinery report unpaid bills piling up. The contagion has spread to real estate, with industrial sheds going vacant and rents crashing.
Mitigation strategies include aggressive marketing in Africa and Latin America, coupled with investments in eco-friendly dyeing processes to meet stringent buyer standards. Central government interventions, such as enhanced PLI schemes, offer hope, but implementation delays frustrate exporters.
In this high-stakes game of global trade, India’s negotiators must secure concessions. For now, the Coimbatore-Tirupur belt symbolizes the perils of over-reliance on a single market, urging a painful but necessary diversification.