This city’s garment exports were valued at US$3.7 billion last year, according to the Tiruppur Exporters’ Association, and a third of the apparel manufactured here is normally shipped to American retailers, including Walmart, Target, and Sears.
Interviews with more than a dozen factory workers, labour contractors and business executives revealed how rapidly the Trump Administration’s trade war has upended lives and livelihoods across Tiruppur.
It is a one-industry town where many workers have no written contracts or job security.
Migrant labourers from rural villages have been sent home. Those still employed on the production lines said their hours and wages have been slashed.
Exporters faced with frozen or cancelled orders are focused on shipping out existing inventory, fearing new stock will go unsold; some said US buyers have begun demanding discounts of up to 20% to offset the cost of tariffs.
Manohar Sahni, 44, spent the past two years here trimming loose threads from freshly stitched garments. He migrated to Tiruppur with his family from the impoverished state of Bihar in eastern India, drawn by the promise of steady work.
His wife worked in a factory, too, and together they earned about US$450 ($785) a month – enough for a modest living, and far more than they could make back home.
They were paid for each piece of clothing they produced.
When production slowed and shifts disappeared, their income cratered to just over US$250 a month, scarcely enough to cover food and rent, let alone the debts they had taken on for their eldest daughter’s wedding.
“I don’t know what to do,” Sahni said. “Should I use the little money I have to feed my family or repay what I owe?”
Manohar Sahni, 44, and his wife, Ramvati Devi, 35, worked as piece-rate garment employees in Tiruppur’s export companies. Photo / Supriya Kumar, for The Washington Post
Last month, leaving his wife and two children behind, Sahni travelled hundreds of kilometres to neighbouring Karnataka state, where he found a job in construction for US$4 a day.
He said he doesn’t know much about global trade policy, but he feels abandoned by India’s Government. “No help has come,” he said. “No one cares what happens to us.”
Mohan Shankar, managing partner of Geena Garments, which manufactures T-shirts, pants and children’s clothes for brands like H&M, said “the most important thing for us now is not to look at profit margins, but to manage cash flow. It is a period of survival for us.”
With US buyers cutting or delaying orders, Shankar said he plans to reduce production for the American market by nearly 70%. “There’s no option but to cut overhead costs and eventually downsize.”
Most manufacturers in Tiruppur produce low-margin, mass-market clothes. The shirts, leggings and underwear made here typically retail for between US$5 and US$10 in the United States, leaving little room to pass on additional costs, according to Milton Ambrose John, former chairman of the Confederation of Indian Industry in Tiruppur and the managing director of Cotton Blossom, an Indian clothing company.
“Any discount” for American buyers “is not at all sustainable not even 5%“. And some of his customers, he added, “are demanding 10 to 20%”.
The US imposed a 25% tariff on Indian exports in August amid stalled trade negotiations, then doubled the rate to 50% as a penalty for India’s purchases of Russian oil.
Trump said last week that Prime Minister Narendra Modi had pledged to stop buying oil from Moscow, raising hopes of a possible breakthrough, but the Indian Ministry of External Affairs said it was unaware of a call between the two leaders.
A day after the 50% tariffs took effect on August 28, the Indian Government extended an exemption on import duties for cotton, seen as an attempt to provide some relief to clothing manufacturers. But business owners in Tiruppur say they need more support, and they need it urgently.
“There has to be a policy where emergency loans are given to people,” said John, comparing the current slowdown to the pandemic era – the last time so many of the city’s looms fell silent.
India’s Commerce Ministry did not respond to a request for comment.
Sanoj Kumar, 32, who used to work at JSR Garments and Exports as a garment checker, was told there was no more work in the factory after the 50% tariff kicked in. Photo / Supriya Kumar, for The Washington Post
Beyond the short-term pain, there are fears that Indian manufacturers could quickly lose their US market share to competitors like Bangladesh and Vietnam, which face only 20% tariffs.
“It will be easy for [American] companies to make the switch,” said Ajay Srivastava, founder of the Global Trade Research Initiative, a trade and technology think-tank based in New Delhi.
Sanoj Kumar, 32, recalled rushing to finish and ship final orders for his employer before the heightened duties went into effect.
“They made us work day and night to get everything out in time,” said Kumar.
“The brands even had agents come here to supervise and put pressure.”
Days later, he said, he and his colleagues were told not to report to work. There were no more orders to fill.
Kumar, also from Bihar, moved to Tiruppur as a teenager, following his uncles to the garment factories.
He worked as a “checker”, removing stray threads from finished items, and also took on the role of a contractor, connecting migrant workers with local companies. In recent months, he said, nearly all of them have returned home.
“Workers roam from company to company in search of shifts but find none,” said Kumar, who has already burned through his savings.
He runs a cellphone repair shop on the side.
It used to help him make ends meet, but with so much of the city at a standstill, there are few customers most days.
“Only if there is work in the export companies will other businesses also prosper,” he said.
As US tariffs have begun to bite, Modi has preached a message of economic self-reliance.
“It is a great misfortune when dependency becomes a habit,” he told the country in his independence day address in August. “To build a developed India, we will neither stop nor bow down.”
“Saying we didn’t bow down only sounds good,” said Manoj Kumar, 35, a factory worker who has seen his wages slashed in half.
“But how will we feed ourselves?”
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