TAIPEI (Taiwan News) — Textile manufacturer New Wide Group Executive Director Huang Kuan-hua (黃冠華) said Thursday that the 20% US tariff on Vietnamese imports will push companies to overhaul their supply chain and profit models.

Huang said if the tariff rate were under 10%, brands and supply chains might be able to share the burden through negotiation, per CNA. However, with the rate at 20%, while still manageable, there will need to be a new framework to address it, per Anue.

This will demand structural adjustments by international brand customers and cannot be decided unilaterally by New Wide Group and must be worked out on a case-by-case basis, he added.

Huang stressed that New Wide Group’s scale and its NT$30 billion (US$1.03 billion) annual revenue give it bargaining power in the industry and will soften the tariff’s blow. Nonetheless, he noted they will have to keep an eye on final tariff levels for other production countries beyond Vietnam.

He described the sudden US tariff as a clear jolt to the global textile sector. Still, he pushed back against the idea that the textile trade is a “sunset industry,” saying it remains Taiwan’s fourth-largest source of foreign exchange.

New Wide Group, one of Taiwan’s largest textile manufacturers, provides vertically integrated production from fabric to finished garments, with factories in Cambodia and Vietnam, serving major global brands including Adidas, Zara, and Calvin Klein.