People buy clothes in a Calvin Klein store in a shopping center in Beijing on February 5, 2025.
Adek Berry | AFP | Getty images
China has put the owner of Calvin Klein and Tommy Hilfiger to blacklist, which could force the company to close the stores and make in an early repercussion of President Donald Trump’s trade war.
China added PVH Corp. To its “unreliable entities” list on Tuesday, which allows the Chinese government to infiltrate the retailer, to ban import and export activities, to revoke the work permits and to refuse employees the possibility of entering In the country, among other deliberately vague powers.
While the Chinese Ministry of Commerce began to investigate PVH in September for having pretended to refuse to obtain cotton from the Xinjiang region, which has become notorious for its Uighur detention camps, Beijing officially placed the company on its black list on Tuesday. The announcement occurred only a few days after Trump slapped a 10% price on imports from China, and came with a slew of Other reprisals Against the United States, including new rights to energy imports and agricultural equipment.
“There is this trade war in tit-for-tat, and [China] wants to show in the United States that it will take measures to injure large American companies or businesses with significant interests in the United States, “said Michael Kaye, partner of Squire Patton Boggs, who practiced international trade in trade For more than 30 years. “They have been made an example. … I suppose it is, [China] I wanted to choose someone and they wanted it to be someone who was a great visibility. “”
Now that PVH is on the list of unreliable entities, China could force the company to close the dozens of stores it operates in the region and forbid it to sell its goods to online Chinese consumers, Kaye said. Its staff – including those who have built lives in China – could be effectively expelled and sent home, added Kaye.
It is not clear if China would try to enforce the actions against PVH in the Hong Kong Autonomous region, where the company’s registered office in Asia-Pacific is located. In 2020, China adopted a law which gave it more power to apply national laws in Hong Kong, and it is “in particular the case of laws applicable to national security”, which could include the list of Unreliable entities, said Kaye.
At Thursday morning, society seemed to exploit its activities as usual in China.
China could even prohibit PVH from manufacturing in the region, which could force it to move production in other countries and to combat client orders.
It is not known that the exact stages will take exactly China, or if the Trump administration will try to convince China not to punish the business.
In a statement, PVH said it was “surprised and deeply disappointed to learn the decision of the Chinese trade ministry”.
“During our 20 years of operation in China and by proudly serving our consumers, in terms of policy, PVH maintains strict compliance with all relevant laws and regulations operates in accordance with established standards and practices. We will continue our commitment with relevant authorities and impatiently await a positive resolution, “said the company.
China represented 6% of PVH sales and 16% of its profits before interest and taxes in 2023, but it is more based on the country for manufacturing, which represents the greater risk for its activities. PVH has more factories and suppliers in China than in any other region, representing around 18% of production, according to disclosure published in December.
“It has the potential to be very, very disruptive for PVH,” said Neil Saunders, Managing Director of Globaldata, Neil Saunders. “They should certainly rush to find a new capacity. They could do it in time, of course, but the two things that are in question are that, because many supply chains are just in time, they would probably discover it that they succeeded in inventory while they made the transition.
PVH has been working in China for over 20 years, and although it works with suppliers and factories in more than 30 other countries, the high -end goods that it may make it difficult to make elsewhere due to the level of competence Necessary, said Saunders.
“Although you can move the manufacturing capacity reasonably easily, it is not so easy to guarantee quality, guarantee production processes. These things take time in Upskill,” said Saunders. “China has this capacity and these skills, because PVH has been operating there for centuries. Another country, another manufacturing center, may not have these skills immediately.”
In addition, PVH has considered China as a growth market and it will now have to seek new strategies to increase sales and profitability, because demand falls for its high -end dresses, intimate clothes and sweaters.
The list of unreliable entities of China is a relatively new law in the country, and the experts say that it is deliberately opaque. The government has a large latitude to take measures against PVH, but we don’t know exactly what it will do. As a rule, the advice is within a few days of the placement of a company on the black list, said Kaye.
China could add PVH to the list and do nothing to the company, but Kaye said that the chances of this are “very thin” because the government will want to avoid the perception that it is decreasing. China will more likely use PVH as a bargaining currency at the negotiation table with Trump, and will use it as an example to show the power where it has to inflict pain Other American companies with major operations and customer bases in China, such as Nike,, Apple,, General Motors,, Starbucks and others.
“There is a sort of sword of suspended damocles [PVH’s] Head yourself, and that’s exactly what it is, because it is not at all PVH. This is PVH captured in the dungeon between China and the United States, “said Saunders.” China uses PVH as an example to say, look, if the prices go forward, if other restrictions are set up on China, we can make a difficult life for American companies in the country. This is really what it is. “”
