France’s new climate law takes aim at the world’s cheapest fashion while the U.S. tariffs that were meant to control imports have only deepened the global supply chain’s worst abuses.
France is taxing the $3 dress. The United States, meanwhile, helped make it cheaper.
This week, France’s Senate passed a bill designed to curb the environmental and social impacts of ultra-fast fashion. The law introduces a fee of up to €10 per garment by 2030, bans advertising by companies like Shein and Temu, and requires brands to display an eco-score rating based on environmental impact. While imperfect — it exempts European giants like Zara and H&M — it’s one of the most direct attempts by a Western government to slow down a fashion cycle that prioritizes speed and volume over sustainability.
At the same time, the legacy of Donald Trump’s China trade war has done the opposite. Rather than slow ultra-fast fashion, the tariffs helped it evolve. The goal was to bring apparel manufacturing back to the U.S. But the result has been a supply chain even more scattered, more opaque, and in many cases, more harmful.
When the Trump administration imposed sweeping tariffs on Chinese imports — reaching as high as 145 percent — many fashion brands moved production to Vietnam, Cambodia, and the Philippines. These new hubs offered lower costs, weaker labor protections, and fewer environmental regulations. And while the U.S. eventually closed the de minimis loophole that had allowed imports under $800 to enter tariff-free, Shein and Temu simply adjusted. Temu localized its U.S. operations. Shein baked the cost into its prices. Neither platform slowed down.
Australia, meanwhile, emerged as a new hotspot for ultra-fast fashion. With one of the highest per-capita rates of Shein and Temu users globally, the country imports massive volumes of low-cost clothing with little regulation. Just three percent of apparel sold in Australia is made locally. Import taxes are minimal. As cost-of-living pressures rise, the demand for cheap fashion has only grown.
This is the double bind. One nation is taxing ultra-fast fashion at the checkout screen. Another tried to stop it at the border. But neither approach has addressed the platform logic or consumer psychology that enables this market to thrive.
At its core, ultra-fast fashion is not just about price; it’s about pace. These companies upload thousands of new items daily. Orders are small, personalized, and shipped directly to consumers. Shein and Temu shipped more than 800 million parcels to France in 2024 alone. Most of those garments were worn only a handful of times — if at all — before being discarded. In Australia, more than 200,000 tonnes of clothing end up in landfills each year.
The labor costs are equally troubling. Investigations into Shein’s supply chain have revealed factories where workers toil up to 14 hours a day for less than $20. Missed quotas or sewing errors can mean steep pay deductions. In Guangzhou’s so-called “Shein villages,” labor violations and health risks are well-documented. A $5 dress may cost less than lunch, but someone, somewhere, is paying full price for it.
Environmental costs are equally grave. The fashion industry is responsible for roughly ten percent of global greenhouse gas emissions. Producing a single cotton shirt can require over 2,700 liters of water. Synthetic fabrics contribute to the microplastics that now pollute oceans and enter the human food chain. Fast fashion is already a crisis. Ultra-fast fashion escalates it.
France’s law signals a shift away from consumer guilt and brand-led sustainability, and toward state-led regulation. It’s part of a larger European movement that includes the EU’s Circular Economy Action Plan and upcoming eco-design regulations. Still, critics point out that the bill’s final version watered down its reach by excluding homegrown retailers. “It’s a missed opportunity,” Pierre Condamine of Friends of the Earth France, told Euronews.
“We’ve got a text that’s going to target two brands and therefore leave out what represents at least 90 percent of production and clothing sold in France. So it’s a missed opportunity. We could have a real environmental ambition. We are very disappointed because, in the end, we can see that it’s economic protection that has become the major driving force behind this bill. In contrast, at its beginning, there was an ambition to move the sector towards more sustainable practices,” he said.
What remains striking is the contrast: France trying to slow the machine, while U.S. policy—however unintentionally — helped reroute and refine it. The Trump-era tariffs failed to bring back domestic manufacturing. Instead, they pushed production into even murkier territory.
The world’s wardrobes now run on a logic of speed, volume, and invisibility. Tariffs redirected it. France’s eco-tax attempts to reveal it. But ultra-fast fashion remains slippery — adapting faster than most governments can legislate. Until countries coordinate to regulate not just the product, but the platforms and business models that drive this industry, the cycle of exploitation and waste will continue to shift but not slow.
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