Domestic Footwear Makers Push Washington to Prioritize ‘Made in the USA'

Yahoo

31-03-2025

American producers and innovators within the footwear supply chain are attempting to find their footing in a modern manufacturing landscape where rhetoric doesn't always match up with resolve.
Two months into President Donald Trump's second term, talk of tariffs has put the U.S. at odds with many of its trade allies across the globe. The Commander in Chief's stated goal has been to usher in a new golden era of American manufacturing; with supply chains having gone global decades ago, however, results so far have been mixed.
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But with the eyes of the country focused for the first time in years on American manufacturing, the country's footwear makers perceive a long-awaited window to make their presence felt and their goals understood by those in power.
The U.S. Footwear Manufacturing Association (USFMA) held its annual meeting in Washington last week, bringing together dozens of representatives from fabric mills, technology and machinery providers, producers of midsole foams, soles and components, 3D-printing pioneers and academics seeking to do just that.
According to the group's leadership, who guided members through meetings with lawmakers on The Hill, there's low-hanging fruit to be plucked, namely in the form of government contracts and funding for military applications. Capturing these opportunities could give American makers the runway to develop the capacity and scale they need to drive more commercial business through their doors, they believe.
The Department of Defense (DoD) has indeed funneled funds into optimizing military footwear in recent years, and much of that money has gone to research and development for advanced wearable technologies and performance fabrications. For fiscal year 2026, USFMA is requesting that the DoD's Manufacturing Technology (ManTech) Program supply the U.S. footwear industry with $15 million to strengthen the domestic supply chain.
This money, USFMA's executive director Bill McCann said, would allow for the creation of new pilot lines and small-scale footwear production in the U.S. Currently, it would take at least a year and a half for the country's military textile and footwear industrial base to ramp up to a point where it could meet the needs of the nation's armed services in a real conflict scenario, he said, pointing to a DoD study conducted last year. In effect, the U.S. can't outfit its own military without the help of offshore suppliers and trade adversaries like China.
The group is also pushing for support for the Better Outfitting Our Troops Act (BOOTS), which would tighten up uniform standards for military service members, requiring them to wear Berry Amendment compliant American-made boots. Currently, about half of the footwear being worn by servicemembers for base duty (about 250,000 pairs) is purchased from overseas brands or companies engaged in offshore production.
At a meeting with U.S. Representative Lori Trahan (D-Mass.), USFMA members solicited support for the bill and capital investments in footwear manufacturing, with McCann telling the Congresswoman that funding would give U.S. makers 'the critical mass that will allow the supply chain to support not just the military, but also the commercial growth that we're striving for.'
'Currently, about 1 percent of the footwear purchased in the United States is made here,' he explained. 'We would like to get that to 3, 4, 5 percent.'
Kevin McCoy, head of Boston-based New Balance's Made in the USA business centered in New England, told Trahan about the company's recent investments in advanced manufacturing technology and upskilling workers. Funding from the government would allow for further R&D surrounding fit, comfort and performance to support 'arguably the world's most elite athletes, the U.S. armed forces.'
The 119-year-old brand recently launched an innovation center down the street from its headquarters, a factory in New Hampshire that McCoy said would serve as a 'lighthouse' guiding the future of footwear manufacturing for the brand, and a 112,000-square-foot facility in Maine where much of that learning will be applied.
'There's kind of an old school way of making shoes, and we're trying to merge that craftsmanship with technology,' he said. New Balance intends these new facilities to act as 'the birthplace of the manufacturing revolution—how we're going to put shoes together that will enable us to really leapfrog what Asian manufacturing looks like.'
Asked by Trahan what she might notice that's different from a traditional factory, McCoy said a visitor would see 'a heavy dose of technology, heavy dose of robotics, a much cleaner, much brighter single-floor, easy-to-comprehend manufacturing layout, and a lot less potential risks for the individuals to get hurt.'
'We're trying to upskill that entire environment and then backfill it into each one of our facilities,' he explained. 'We're looking to make product that looks different than what we make right now,' he added—both for the military and American shoppers.
With the recent integration of new tech, workers have quickly recognized that AI and automated processes aren't out for their jobs, McCoy added. Learning how to operate advanced machinery and perpetuate new processes may actually spur interest that the manufacturing sector hasn't seen from recent generations of the American workforce, he believes.
Trahan noted that her grandmother, a Brazilian immigrant, worked in a textile mill in Lowell, Mass. upon arriving in the U.S. Cutting the ribbon at New Balance's Methuen, Mass. facility some years later, 'was just a reminder, looking out on that floor, of what's possible in just a generation's time,' she said.
'These aren't traditional manufacturing jobs,' added Charles Abrams, CEO of Dela, Inc., a Haverhill, Mass. engineered foam supplier to New Balance. New equipment will provide better opportunities for the local workforce while also driving efficiency, he said. 'These new technologies allow us to make much better product with much less going in the landfill.'
McCann noted that USFMA has been fielding interest from American brands, especially small- and medium-sized players, looking to onshore some portion of production. Trahan was interested in what might be driving those appetites, and McCann attributed them to the changing trade landscape, with tariffs at the center. Since the Covid-19 pandemic, too, brands have been increasingly seeking smaller production runs made closer to home.
Trahan asked whether that could that spell opportunity for Massachusetts and New England at large, once regarded as the 'footwear manufacturing capital' of the U.S.
'This investment [from the DoD] will help us get there, and it will raise the board across all the manufacturers all the suppliers,' McCoy said.
A boost, a leg up, and some confidence from lawmakers in the potential of the industry would make a world of difference, USFMA members from across the country told Sourcing Journal. Funding would give a burgeoning national supply chain the chance to up its capabilities and its capacity, driving down the high cost of production that has hindered many brands from onshoring.
John Simon, president of South Carolina's Signet Mills, said the company hasn't seen the uptick in interest from American brands that some in the group had experienced, and bemoaned the fact that most large American companies aren't willing to invest in fostering the growth of the domestic supply chain. Some small percentage shift in sourcing from household name retailers and brands would be a difference-maker for those upstream, he said.
In the absence of that support, the engineered fabric maker has shifted away from the apparel industry entirely, focusing on automotive and industrial applications. And now, appealing to the federal government for contracts that support its ability to outfit American service members.
The road to self-sufficiency and true verticalization will be long if those opportunities do materialize. With so much soft-goods production having fled to cheaper pastures in recent decades, so too have the industries that supported apparel and footwear manufacturing.
'Some of the more fundamental materials are not available domestically, because all the volume resides outside of the U.S. The large chemical companies, for example, are manufacturing those base materials in those regions, and they have no reason to manufacture them here, so we have to import those products,' Vincent Bonaddio of Massachusetts-based Rogers Foam said.
Asked whether he believes there will always be some level of dependency on offshore production, Bonaddio said such industries are unlikely to return to the U.S. in the absence of an industry operating at scale, even though many of these materials and components were historically manufactured stateside. 'As volume picks up here, there could be opportunities to move them back, because it's in our best interest. It starts on the military side, and then it works into the consumer side.'
In the near term, he fears that tariffs may hinder U.S. producers. 'It hurts because the raw materials that would go into products are going to be impacted, and we're just not prepared to have those materials manufactured here.'
But U.S. footwear manufacturers are a scrappy bunch and are unlikely to be deterred by tenuous market conditions or geopolitical strife. Chugging along with dwindling support for so long has forced them to harden their resolve, innovate quicker and band together for survival.
Kuba Graczyk, founder of Los Angeles-based 3D-printed footwear startup Koobz, believes against the odds (of which these producers are continually reminded) that there are still ample openings for American shoemakers to make their mark, especially as technological trailblazers.
A relative newcomer to the industry by way of advanced robotics for the automotive sector, Graczyk, also a recent immigrant to the U.S., said there's no reason to approach lawmakers or the industry from a supplicant standpoint.
'We have to dream big, we have to aim high—and why limit ourselves to 5 percent? Why can we not do 100 percent of footwear manufacturing in the United States and export the excess to other countries?'
It's a lofty goal, he recognizes. But the upstart, which has pioneered a unique 3D-printing process for mono-material, single-piece footwear, is already making inroads with household-name brands and A-list tastemakers, with plans to debut its first commercial projects in the coming months.
'If we go for 3 percent, we'll get a half percent. If we pitch for 100 percent, we'll get 50, or maybe even 40,' he said.
Many in the industry—and even his peers—might balk at the idea that U.S. footwear production could ever claw back a double-digit share of the market. But rather than begging for business and operating from a place of humility, Graczyk said that if the sector can 'push from a position of innovation and confidence and pitch that we can be great and as a group—that we have great ideas on how to bring this manufacturing to the United States—we will be much more successful.'
'Being more bullish, that's what we need to do,' he added.