Remember when Trump was campaigning for the presidency back in 2016?  He kept going on and on about how everything we buy is made in China. He bared his teeth when uttering the word CHII-NAH.  So naturally, we assumed that things would change under his administration. But it didn’t.  If we bought a new dress at the mall or ordered a coat from Amazon, it  had a brand name that sounded American. But if you looked inside at the label, it usually said “made in China.”  Still does. 90% of the clothes in my closet were made there.  China is still America’s seamstress.

Politicians keep talking about the trade war, but I’m not sure what they’re doing about it.  If they’ve imposed tariffs on clothing made in China, they aren’t high enough to make anyone want to open more  garment factories  in the USA.

Back in the forties and fifties, a lot of us sewed our own clothes.  It was fun to look at patterns and go through stacks of materials, dreaming about the new outfit you were about to create.  And you had the satisfaction of saving a lot of money.  A homemade dress cost about 1/3 of what you would pay for a “store bought” outfit.  Somewhere along the way, that began to change.  Clothes were so cheap that it really didn’t pay to sew.  Why? Because of China.  They did– and still do– have the advantage of low labor costs.  Obviously, there are no labor unions in China..

Amazon won’t tell you if a dress is made in China in their product description.  But there are small clues.  Usually, there are strange, grammatical errors, for example:. “it fit like dream.” Instead of “It fits like a dream.”  Little nuances that show there’s something lost in translation.  Another thing they’ll do is suggest you  order a size larger than usual.  Apparently, this is because Asian women are so much smaller than Americans.  But it also saves on material.  If  vanity compels you order your usual size, and it’s a little bit snug, you might blame yourself for weight gain.  As a consequence, you keep the dress in the hopes of eventually losing five pounds or more. Just one tricky little way that Chinese clothing manufacturers fool us.

What would happen if our government really  got serious about imposing tariffs on Chinese clothing imports?  Prices would skyrocket.  And maybe—just maybe—we would start sewing our own clothes again.  Until that happens, China will continue as America’s seamstress.