00:00As bridal gown designer Valentina Schuchner puts the finishing touches on her wedding dress collection for Buenos Aires Fashion Week,
00:08she says the mood is not celebratory.
00:14I think the environment is a bit strange, even emotionally speaking. Everyone is a bit sadder, more stressed.
00:21I'm obviously generalizing, but you hear that it's harder to make ends meet.
00:27And many brands are closing.
00:30Argentina's textile and apparel sector is facing one of its worst downturns in decades, as ultra-cheap imports, many from
00:38Chinese fast fashion platforms, flood the market.
00:43President Javier Mille has made opening the market one of his goals, aimed at deregulating trade, driving competition, and lowering
00:51prices.
00:52Last year, his government cut clothing and footwear tariffs from 35% to 20%.
00:58Rules on cross-border e-commerce orders have also been relaxed, raising the duty-free threshold for courier shipments in
01:052024 to $400.
01:08Mille's policies have helped rein in inflation, stabilize prices, and boost economic activity for some industries, like agriculture.
01:17But when combined with cheaper imports, domestic industries, like textiles, are feeling the crunch.
01:23At the family-run Amesud textile plant just outside Buenos Aires, Chief Executive David Kim said the factory's running at
01:31just 30% capacity.
01:46A spokesperson for Mille's trade ministry declined to comment.
01:50Argentina's main clothing industry trade group said door-to-door imports, shipped directly from other countries to consumers' homes, almost
01:58quadrupled last year.
02:00China has been a particular beneficiary.
02:03Industry group Fondacion Proteger said China's share of textile and clothing imports surged roughly 55% in 2022 to 70
02:13% in 2025, driven heavily by Xi'an and Timu.
02:17Meanwhile, Argentina's textile sector has cut 16% of its workforce since 2023, shrinking from about 121,000 employees to
02:27102,000 by the end of last year, according to industry data published in February.
02:33Kim said his company invested $10 million in imported machinery over the past decade to meet the demand of clients
02:40including Nike, Puma, and local kids' clothing brand Mimo & Co.
02:44But now, much of the equipment is sitting idle.
02:51We've lived through many crises in this country, but this is the worst crisis in our history.
02:59Not only the worst in terms of money we lost, but the longest in time, and the one where we
03:03had to let go of the most people.
03:05In this country a lot of people we lost, but the one where we ěěŁ , it was truly hard.
03:07The other country we lost and the world , theç, John Corenzie , the Puma, talks about salty racism.
03:08Donald Trump comes with a parece 2008, just shut down to the house.
03:09Don tÎť.
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