Above a table littered with white cotton fabric, a red digital screen blinks: “64%” today’s line efficiency. A worker in a pink salwar (loose trousers) with a peacock-green print—the standard uniform at apparel maker KPR Mills’s Unit 2—guides a strip of fabric beneath her sewing machine. Minutes later, the fabric will emerge as a plain white T-shirt bound for Swedish fast-fashion giant H&M.

Around her, more than 2,000 workers hum to Bollywood music blaring from the factory speakers, each producing the same T-shirt for a 200,000-unit H&M order.

KPR, valued at over Rs 35,000 crore, has long been one of the country’s largest knitwear suppliers to global brands. Along with over 265 other apparel exporters, it’s based in Tiruppur, a town 474 km from Chennai—and supplies to clients like Marks and Spencer (UK), Coles (Australia), and Burt’s Bees Baby (USA). Roughly a fifth of this unit’s exports went to the United States. Together, firms like KPR have helped make India the world’s seventh-largest knitwear exporter.

Until now.

On 27 August, the Donald Trump administration in the US imposed a 50% tariff on most imports from India. The move hit hardest in Tiruppur, which producesEconomic TimesTiruppur in trouble? What is ailing this Rs 70,000-crore textile cluster from scaling up 90% of India’s cotton knitwear exports and more than half of India’s total knitwear exports. Over a thirdPeople Mattershttps://www.peoplematters.in/news/economy-policy/50percent-tariffs-on-exports-trigger-mass-layoffs-in-tiruppur-textile-hub-43731 of this goes straight to the US. 

“Our exports will now be less US competitive, especially with Bangladesh exempt from the additional 25% tax,” said an executive of KPR. Next year, the company expects its share of US exports to drop from 20% to single digits. “We’ll switch focus to Europe, which is the second-largest market for apparel,” he added.

Across Tiruppur, with its population of 878,000, the sentiment is similar. Change is underway. From some of the largest apparel makers, such as Eastman Exports and Best Corporation, which have been around for over 40 years and are predominantly US dependent, to medium-sized ones, exporters are re-stitching their playbooks in response to the tariff.