Cowboy boots excluded from new agreement
04/06/2008
An agreement that the governments of Mexico and China have reached to keep tariffs on footwear imports from the Asian country into its North American trading partner will not cover cowboy boots.
Chinese manufacturers of cowboy boots will no longer have to pay a quota of 300% on top of a 35% import tariff when shipping their products to Mexico.
In explaining this part of the agreement, José Abugaber Andonie, president of the footwear chamber of commerce in the main leather and footwear production state, Guanajuato, said his organisation had received convincing feedback from local manufacturers of these boots that the threat from China was limited.
He said that because the boots are traditionally made entirely from leather, Chinese manufacturers would have difficulty keeping costs low, given how dependent China is on imported leather. His information is that some Chinese boots in the cowboy style cost around $15 to make. But he said boots "that are leather, with leather, real leather on the sole" weer a different matter.
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