The past 15 months have subjected the nonwovens industry to a tariff environment unlike anything in living memory, and not merely because of the top-line rates. What distinguishes this period is the degree to which the federal government has reached for legal tools that had never before been used or not been used at the scale now being deployed. Companies within the nonwovens value chain that have any inputs sourced internationally have had to absorb not only the cost of the tariffs themselves but the operational uncertainty of not knowing which legal authority would govern their supply chains from one quarter to the next, not to mention the tariff rate itself.
February-April 2025: The Opening Salvo
The tariff cascade began within days of the second Trump administration taking office. On February 1, 2025, the president invoked the International Emergency Economic Powers Act, a 1977 statute designed to let presidents impose economic sanctions in response to foreign threats, to levy tariffs on imports from Canada, Mexico and China, citing national emergencies tied to fentanyl trafficking and border security. The move was immediately significant for the nonwovens sector, which sources polypropylene resins, polyester staple fiber, and nonwoven roll goods from all three countries. Then, on April 2, branded as “Liberation Day” in administration messaging, a sweeping regime of global reciprocal tariffs was announced under the same International Emergency Economic Powers Act (IEEPA) authority, imposing a baseline 10 percent surcharge on virtually all U.S. imports, with dramatically higher rates on goods from China.
The historical significance of this action was that IEEPA had never in its 48-year history been used to impose tariffs of any kind. Administrations of both parties had deployed the statute for sanctions, asset freezes, and targeted trade restrictions — but not tariffs. That unprecedented application, legal experts noted at the time, was precisely what made it legally vulnerable.
The Section 232 Investigative Surge
Simultaneously, the administration launched a remarkable wave of investigations under Section 232 of the Trade Expansion Act of 1962, the national security statute that authorized the steel and aluminum tariffs of the first Trump term. The pace and scope were without parallel. Between January and July 2025 alone, the Department of Commerce’s Bureau of Industry and Security opened at least nine new Section 232 probes — covering copper, timber and lumber, semiconductors, pharmaceuticals, critical minerals, heavy trucks, polysilicon, unmanned aircraft and commercial aircraft. For context, in the nearly six decades between Section 232’s enactment in 1962 and 2020, Commerce initiated just 31 total national security investigations under the statute. The second Trump administration surpassed a significant fraction of that historical total within its first six months.
For the nonwovens industry, the most significant Section 232 investigation announced was the one on medical devices and personal protective equipment (PPE) announced in September 2025. The results of that investigation and implementation of tariffs related to it had not been finalized as of early May.
Mid-2025: Courts Push Back, Existing Section 301 Exclusions Extended
Many of the new tariffs implemented in 2025, stacked on top of existing Section 301 tariffs on Chinese goods, originally imposed during the first Trump administration following investigations into China’s intellectual property and technology transfer practices, had carried a set of product-specific exclusions that were subject to periodic renewal. In June and August 2025, the Office of the U.S. Trade Representative extended 178 such exclusions for another 90-day window, carrying them through November 2025. As part of a trade agreement between the Trump administration and China in early November, those exclusions were extended until November 2026. Notably, the extensions include multiple nonwoven roll goods, meaning those products have been coming into the United States without the additional 25 percent tariff since at least 2020.
In the courts, the legal architecture underpinning the administration’s broadest tariff powers was beginning to crack. In May 2025, both the Court of International Trade (CIT) and the U.S. District Court for the District of Columbia ruled that IEEPA does not authorize the president to impose tariffs, with the CIT issuing a permanent nationwide injunction. Those rulings were stayed pending appeal. In August 2025, the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Federal Circuit upheld the CIT’s decision. The government appealed to the Supreme Court, which accepted the consolidated cases in September and scheduled oral arguments for November 5, 2025.
February 20, 2026: The Supreme Court Rules
On February 20, 2026, the Supreme Court issued its decision in Learning Resources Inc. v. Trump, striking down the IEEPA tariffs in a 6-3 ruling authored by Chief Justice John Roberts and joined by Justices Sotomayor, Kagan, Gorsuch, Barrett and Jackson. The Court held that IEEPA’s grant of authority to “regulate . . . importation” does not include the power to impose tariffs. Roberts found it “telling,” in his words, that despite IEEPA’s enactment in 1977, no president had ever invoked it to impose tariffs until 2025, suggesting Congress had not understood the statute to carry that authority. The decision vacated more than $166 billion in collected duties and opened a potentially massive refund process for importers across all sectors.
For importers, the ruling did not mean relief was imminent. While the reciprocal tariffs were gone in the legal sense, they were replaced within hours.
February 20, 2026: Section 122 — Another First
Within hours of the Supreme Court’s decision, the president signed a proclamation imposing a new 10 percent global tariff under Section 122 of the Trade Act of 1974 — a statute that had never previously been used to impose import surcharges in its entire history. Section 122 authorizes the president to levy a temporary surcharge of up to 15 percent to address “large and serious United States balance-of-payments deficits,” but caps both the rate and the duration at 150 days without congressional action. The Section 122 tariffs took effect February 24, 2026, the same moment IEEPA duties ceased collection, and are currently set to expire July 24, 2026. The president announced plans to raise the Section 122 rate from 10 to 15 percent days after it was implemented, however that change had not been made by early May.
The administration justified the invocation by citing a $1.2 trillion annual goods trade deficit, a negative primary income balance for the first time in modern history, and a net international investment position of negative 90 percent of GDP. Critics, including economists and the 23 states that subsequently filed suit in the Court of International Trade, argued that these figures described a trade deficit, not the balance-of-payments emergency that Section 122 technically requires. Whether the statute applies remains an open legal question likely to be litigated into the summer.
The transition from IEEPA to Section 122 also included a carve-out for goods covered by the United States-Mexico-Canada Agreement (USMCA) preferential treatment, but it flattened the country-specific rate differentiation that had characterized the IEEPA regime. Where IEEPA had allowed negotiated bilateral arrangements that set different effective rates for different trading partners, Section 122 applies a uniform 10 percent on all origins. That simplification cuts both ways for the industry: it eliminates some of the arbitrage opportunities that sourcing diversification created, while also reducing the uncertainty associated with bilateral deal negotiations, at least until July.
The Section 301 Path Forward — And Why It Matters
Administration officials, including Treasury Secretary Scott Bessent, have been explicit that combining Section 122, Section 232, and Section 301 tariffs is intended to replicate the revenue level previously generated by IEEPA. The key long-term instrument is expected to be Section 301. Shortly after the Supreme Court ruling, U.S. Trade Representative Jamieson Greer announced the initiation of new Section 301 investigations targeting major U.S. trading partners, including China, the EU, Mexico and several Southeast Asian countries, as the statutory basis for future country-specific tariffs to replace the reciprocal tariff architecture that IEEPA had provided.
Unlike IEEPA, Section 301 requires a formal investigative record demonstrating that a trading partner’s acts, policies, or practices are “unreasonable or discriminatory” and burden U.S. commerce. That process takes time, typically over 12 months, and subjects the administration’s conclusions to a higher degree of legal scrutiny than the emergency declaration pathway IEEPA appeared to offer. For nonwovens companies with sourcing relationships in Vietnam, India, Turkey or elsewhere that had been subject to elevated IEEPA reciprocal rates, the Section 301 investigation process introduces a new round of uncertainty. The outcomes of these investigations will be released on a highly expedited timeline, likely in July 2026, and will determine tariff rates well into 2027 and beyond.
What The Industry Faces Now
The net effect of 15 months of extraordinary tariff activity is a nonwovens trade environment that is simultaneously more legally constrained and more unpredictable than at any prior point in modern history. Section 232 tariffs on metals and derivative products — at rates of 25 to 50 percent — remain in full force and are not affected by the IEEPA ruling. Existing Section 301 tariffs on Chinese goods, and exclusions to those for many nonwovens, also remain. The Section 122 surcharge adds 10 percent on top, through at least July. And the Section 301 investigations launched in the wake of the IEEPA ruling may produce a new wave of country-specific duties before the year is out.
What is certain is that this is not a temporary turbulence. The statutory investigations that will determine the next chapter of U.S. tariff policy are already underway, particularly the new Section 301 probes designed to recreate the reciprocal tariff architecture on firmer legal ground. It is also clear that the use of tariffs as a policy tool will extend into future administrations of both parties. As always, INDA – the Association of the Nonwoven Fabrics Industry, is advocating for a fair approach to trade policy that allows the nonwovens sector to flourish.
