FDRA has been advocating on behalf of the footwear industry for over 75 years. Headquartered between the White House and the U.S. Capitol in Washington, DC, FDRA is THE voice of the footwear industry and constantly pushes for both the full elimination of ALL footwear duties and for the free flow of footwear worldwide.
With 99% of all footwear sold in the U.S. imported, footwear tariffs, put in place in the 1930s, no longer protect American jobs but are actually harming the footwear industry from expanding jobs here in the US. Rather than pay $3.4 billion in footwear duties in 2021, companies could have used those funds to innovate and hire new workers in the fields of design, marketing and retail as well as good paying blue collar jobs at ports, warehouses, and in trucking. It would have also saved American consumers $6.4 billion in 2021 on their shoes at retail!
Footwear tariffs are also some of the highest on any consumer good, averaging 13% but reaching upwards of 48% and 67.5% on certain footwear types. Meanwhile, items like iPhones have no duty rate. Tariffs directly increase the cost of footwear at retail, hitting hard working families the hardest as lower cost basic shoes face significantly higher tariffs than men’s leather dress shoes (8.5%).