The Swedish fashion retailer H&M He is working to buy more than his clothes and accessories to suppliers closer to his key markets in Europe and the United Statessaid his chief of finance to Reuters on Thursday, partly to prepare for possible import tariffs from the United States.
“For many reasons we need to create a more regionalized supply chain, both for geopolitical reasons, Learning through the COVID that we need to create more resistance in our supply chain, to support the capacity for response and customer offer“Adam Karlsson said in an interview after the quarterly results.
The possible tariffs of the United States to imports are also pushing H&M to lookSaid Karlsson, adding that the retailer had prepared scenarios for such commercial barriers, which he described as “concern.”
“Of course it is a factor, and there are certain countries under greater scrutiny related to commercial barriers, and we are monitoring that as we move forward,” he said, adding that the fact that H&M is supplied with a wide range of countries was a advantage.
According to Karlsson, H&M is studying the possibility of stocking more products from Central America to serve markets such as the United States and Brazil. In Europe, it is supplying more in Türkiye and seeks to build its supplier base in Morocco and Egypt.
The president of the United States, Donald Trump has made multiple threats on tariffs, including imports from Mexico, Canada, China and the European Unionand the idea of a general tariff on all imports, which retailers and economists have said that would boost rising prices.
“If tariffs increase for everyone, a relative position (in terms of prices) will have to be adopted”says Karlsson. “We should position our offer in the same way regardless of whether there are tariffs or not.”
H&M has not revealed sales by countries by 2024, but in 2023 the United States was its second largest market for sales, with 14% of total income.
