The United States imposed a permanent 12.5% Section 301 duty on Vietnamese goods effective July 24, 2026, replacing the expired Section 122 surcharge with no gap between them. This guide covers what the duty costs by garment category, the textile mechanism that gave four competing sourcing countries reduced-rate access that Vietnam did not receive, and the preferential rates that continue to apply in every market outside the United States.

Vietnam has more free trade agreements covering apparel than any competing production country. This guide covers what each agreement requires, how rules of origin determine whether you qualify for preferential rates, and what that means for buyers shipping to multiple markets from a single production base.

Vietnam knit manufacturing across jersey, interlock, fleece, pique, ponte, and fully-fashioned construction at two million pieces per month.

Hotels, health systems, and universities buy bed linens on a written specification that looks nothing like a retail product description. Thread count barely appears. Blend ratio, post-laundering dimensions, woven width, seam performance, and expected wash cycles do. This guide sets out what a linen specification contains, why familiar consumer numbers mislead in this category, and what a buyer should put in an RFQ so competing quotes can be compared honestly.

A jacket quote arrives as a single FOB figure, and most brands accept it without checking whether the arithmetic holds. This guide breaks a jacket cost into its four working parts, shows which lines move when a specification changes, identifies where a quote can be inflated without anyone stating anything false, and lists what a buyer should request so the next quote is verifiable.