According to relevant statistics, in May this year, China's textile and clothing exports amounted to US$26.21 billion, an increase of US$2.02 billion from the previous month and an increase of US$80 million from the previous year. Among them, exports to the United States amounted to US$3.256 billion, an increase of US$586 million from the previous month and a decrease of US$764 million from the previous year; exports to the European Union amounted to US$4.165 billion, an increase of US$1.09 billion from the previous month and an increase of US$663 million from the previous year. From January to May, the cumulative export value of my country's textiles and clothing was US$116.67 billion, an increase of US$830 million from the previous year, an increase of 1%. Among them, exports to the United States amounted to US$16.81 billion, a decrease of US$544 million from the previous year, a decrease of 3.1%; exports to the European Union amounted to US$15.11 billion, an increase of US$1.17 billion from the previous year, an increase of 8.4%. From January to May this year, China's textile and clothing exports to the United States accounted for 14.5% of the total export value, a decrease of 0.56 percentage points from the same period last year and a decrease of 2 percentage points from the end of last year; China's exports to the European Union accounted for 13% of the total export value, an increase of 0.9 percentage points from the same period last year and a decrease of 0.3 percentage points from the end of last year. Affected by the Sino-US trade relations, the proportion of China's textile and clothing exports to the United States has declined in recent years.
However, in terms of proportion, the United States is still the largest exporter of Chinese textiles and clothing. According to data, from January to May 2025, China imported a total of 440,000 tons of cotton. Among them, Brazilian cotton accounted for 235,700 tons, accounting for 53.8% of the total imports, an increase of 11.6 percentage points from the end of 2024; 94,000 tons of cotton were imported from the United States, accounting for 21.36% of the total imports, a decrease of 12 percentage points from the end of 2024. In the structure of China's cotton imports, Brazilian cotton has replaced the top spot of US cotton, and its proportion far exceeds that of US cotton. Overall, changes in Sino-US trade relations have a significant negative impact on domestic textile and clothing exports to the United States, unless the growth of other markets can offset the decline in the United States; it has little impact on the total domestic cotton imports, and the import source country can be changed to supplement the reduction in imports of US cotton. It can be seen from the US Agricultural Supply and Demand Report in June that in 2025/26, Brazil's cotton production is expected to be 4.25 million bags more than US cotton, which is expected to make up for the reduction of US cotton in China. Although the US market is still the largest single export destination, Chinese textile companies are accelerating the development of emerging markets such as the EU and ASEAN. Taking Zhejiang as an example, the proportion of exports to the US has dropped from 25% last year to 23%, but exports to the EU have increased by US$663 million. This wave of operations has brought three chain reactions: first, Southeast Asian re-export trade has surged, and the order volume from Vietnam, Bangladesh and other countries has increased by more than 20% year-on-year; second, domestic companies have accelerated technological upgrades, such as a factory in Shandong that has increased its per capita output value by 2.8 times through digital transformation; third, tariff costs have been given up, and some companies have converted reduced tariffs into price advantages to grab back low-end and mid-end orders. It is worth noting that the United States' dependence on Chinese textiles is still as high as 30%, and complete decoupling in the short term is almost impossible.
