Shares of retail and apparel companies perked up on Wednesday after U.S. President

Donald Trump

announced a

trade deal with Vietnam

.

Vietnam is a key footwear and apparel manufacturing centre for major retailers, including

Nike Inc.

,

Adidas AG

,

Gap Inc.

, Under Armour Inc.,

Lululemon Athletica Inc.

and

Aritzia Inc.

— all of which got a boost from the news.

“The terms are that Vietnam will pay the United States a 20 per cent

tariff

on any and all goods sent into our territory, and a 40 per cent tariff on any transshipping,” Trump wrote on Truth Social.

For companies with global supply chains, transshipping is a process where goods transit through an intermediate country and are temporarily stored or loaded onto another vessel before being shipped to their final destination.

Trump originally levied a 46 per cent tariff on goods from Vietnam as part of his sweeping “Liberation Day” tariff announcement on April 2. After a week of global market volatility that saw the S&P 500 index, Dow Jones industrial average and Nasdaq composite post their biggest losses since 2020, Trump announced a 90-day pause on the so-called “reciprocal tariffs,” which expires on July 9.

Vietnam’s 46 per cent tariff rate was among the highest imposed on the more than 50 countries included in Trump’s April 2 announcement. The southeast Asian country exported US$44 billion in textiles and garments last year, according to the Vietnam Textile and Apparel Association, with about 40 per cent going to the U.S. In general, the U.S. ranks as Vietnam’s top export destination.

Vietnam is a particularly important hub for footwear giants such as Nike and Adidas. Nike has manufactured goods in Vietnam since 1995 and produced 50 per cent of its footwear and 28 per cent of its apparel in Vietnam in its 2024 fiscal year. The company’s share price increased by four per cent after the trade deal was announced.

Adidas, meanwhile, which last year sourced 39 per cent of its footwear and 18 per cent of its apparel from Vietnam, only had a one per cent gain in share price.

Lululemon produced 40 per cent of its products in Vietnam in 2024, while 27 per cent of Gap’s manufacturing came from Vietnam. The companies’ share prices were up 2.8 per cent and 2.4 per cent respectively.

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In fiscal 2025, Under Armour (up two per cent) reported that 67 per cent of its apparel and accessories were manufactured in Jordan, Vietnam, Cambodia and Indonesia.

Aritzia, whose stock rose nearly five per cent on the news, said in its last quarterly earnings call in May that most of its production takes place in China, Vietnam and Cambodia.

• Email: jswitzer@postmedia.com