The company New Balance Fresh Foam 1080 Review has continued to make shoes in the U. S., even though that means settling for less profit. New Balance New Balance Fresh Foam Runner's World says the flexibility of its U. S. factories and turnaround times counted in days, rather than weeks, help make up for the higher cost. But a push by rivals to do away with tariffs on imported running shoes, as part of a larger trade deal, could finally tip the scales against its American strategy. "A rapid reduction of the existing [tariff] agreements would put our factories here at significant risk, " says Robert DeMartini, CEO of the Boston-based company, which is fighting to keep the tariffs in place.

Shoe tariffs New Balance Fresh Foam Clearance have been around since the 1930s, when the U. S. still had a large domestic shoe industry that it wanted to protect from foreign competition. But today, the U. S. imports 99% of its shoes, mostly from Asia. New Balance, with sales last year of $2. 4 billion, views tariffs as one of several factors that keep its U. S. operations viable. The company has invested in new machines and cut out waste at its U. S. plants, which together employ 1, 350 people. It also helps that the company's American-made shoes tend to be pricey, retailing for as much as $275, and include designs first made popular decades ago that have been revived mainly as fashion accessories.

But even iNew Balance Fresh Foam Womens n its most streamlined form, shoe making remains relatively labor-intensive. The upshot, New Balance says, is that it still costs 25% to 35% more to produce shoes in the U. S. than it does in Asia. Shoe tariffs, which vary widely depending on things like the materials involved, add about $3 to $5 to the cost of a pair of midprice imported running shoes. While that might not seem much, New Balance says the loss of that buffer would make the economics of its American-made strategy that much harder. If the tariffs go away, "it puts our competitors in a position to realize an even greater margin than we are, " says Matthew LeBretton, a new Balance spokesman, "and they can then reinvest that in their business. "

The fight New Balance Fresh Foam 80v2 Cross-Training Sneakers Red over tariffs comes as American manufacturing appears on the cusp of a revival, driven by forces expected to favor companies like New Balance. Wages in China have risen nearly 20% a year since 2007—prompting many producers to shift labor-intensive work to lower-cost countries, such as Vietnam. But costs are rising in other parts of Asia, as well. A recent study by the Boston Consulting Group predicts that by 2015 there will be only about a 10% cost difference between China and the U. S. in making products such as machinery, furniture and plastics. But shoes aren't among them.