Polyester has had a simple commercial argument for a long time: cheap, predictable, and built for speed. Cheap energy kept synthetic fiber costs under control. China’s manufacturing scale kept fabric moving. De minimis gave direct-import sellers a nearly frictionless path into the U.S. market. Fast fashion used all of it to flood retail with low-priced clothing and train consumers to expect exactly that. Cotton looked slower, less predictable, and harder to defend on price.
But that argument rested on a specific set of conditions holding steady simultaneously. Energy had to stay cheap. Shipping lanes had to stay open. Customs had to keep tolerating enormous volumes of low-value parcels. Political shocks had to stay manageable. Once any of those started to slip, the whole structure became less reliable, and right now several are slipping at once.
The Iran War Changes the Math
The Iran war has put pressure on the whole structure. Media reports early this month said that factories were already facing supply chain disruptions, delivery delays, and rising input costs tied to the conflict. By mid-April, the Port of Los Angeles was warning that the Strait of Hormuz shock was cutting into global traffic, with thousands of ships affected since late February, and U.S. container volume expected to fall year over year in April.
Freight slows, insurance rises, routing gets more complicated, and lead times become less reliable. The margin for error disappears. And polyester’s cost advantage has always depended on moving petrochemical-based goods cheaply and on schedule. When the route gets uncertain, low first cost stops aren’t the whole answer. Buyers start weighing total risk: origin exposure, timing, and how many weak links sit between the factory gate and the store floor.
Polyester’s Weak Spot Is Oil
Polyester still dominates global fiber production. A recent academic analysis put synthetics at about two-thirds of total world fiber output, with polyester alone accounting for 54%. China remains the center of gravity for synthetic fiber production and for mass-market synthetic and blended fabrics. That scale is real, and it does not disappear overnight.
Reuters reported this week that naphtha, a crude-oil byproduct used in products ranging from paint to polyester, is under pressure as the Iran war tightens supply. Some Asian plastic suppliers were preparing to increase prices by as much as 30%, while Chinese manufacturers were already reporting sharp jumps in nylon and other petrochemical-based inputs. Its value does not move in lockstep with a refinery.
Also Read: The Fashion Industry In 2026: Low Growth, Hard Questions
De Minimis Was Part of the Polyester Story
The closing of de minimis has also hit the model hard. The White House order dated February 20, 2026, continued the suspension of duty-free de minimis treatment for covered shipments and made clear that the exemption would no longer apply regardless of shipment value, country of origin, transportation mode, or method of entry.
De minimis was never just a customs technicality. It was one of the key supports holding up the cheap, direct-to-consumer apparel machine. Reuters reported last year that the exemption helped drive a surge of low-value e-commerce shipments into the United States, including low-cost apparel sold through companies such as Temu. In fiscal 2024, 1.36 billion de minimis shipments entered the country with a declared value of $64.6 billion, and about 73% came from China. The ability to ship synthetic garments directly to U.S. consumers with minimal friction was part of polyester’s edge, and that channel has closed.
Why Cotton Prices Have Moved Up
Brands and retailers have already been moving toward nearshoring, vertical integration, and China+1 sourcing as trade friction and repeated supply chain shocks accumulate. For the U.S. market, that shift favors more production in nearby countries and a more diversified regional structure overall. Cotton fits that environment better than it ever fit the fast-fashion formula. It is easier to defend in a sourcing strategy built around resilience, traceability, and reduced dependence on a long synthetic pipeline running through geopolitically unstable territory.
The recent move in cotton prices is grounded in actual market improvement. USDA’s April Cotton and Wool Outlook said recent price gains were enough to lift its projected 2025/26 average U.S. upland farm price to 61 cents per pound from 60 cents in March. USDA’s Weekly Cotton Market Review for the week ending April 9 reported that spot quotations averaged 68.66 cents per pound, up from 66.95 cents the week before and well above the same week a year earlier. Daily quotations hit a season high of 69.94 cents on April 9, and the ICE May settlement closed that week at 73.26 cents, up from 70.92 cents the prior week.
The sales data back it up. USDA export reporting showed net upland sales of 371,500 running bales for the week ending March 26, sharply above the prior week and well above the prior four-week average. For the following week ending April 2, net upland sales were still strong at 319,600 bales, while exports reached 342,700 bales. USDA described spot market demand as good and said total season spot transactions were running well ahead of the prior year. Prices moved because demand improved, export business improved, and the market concluded that cotton had been priced too cheaply for current conditions.
Cotton Doesn’t Need a Perfect Win
Global polyester overcapacity is still real. The synthetic system remains vast, deeply entrenched, and capable of keeping prices low for long stretches. China still dominates too much of the fiber and fabric chain for anyone to call this a permanent shift.
But the conditions that made polyester look untouchable are under pressure from several directions at once: war risk has raised the cost of distance, energy politics have raised the cost of petrochemical dependence, and the closing of de minimis has raised the cost of the direct-import fast-fashion model.
Buyers who spent years chasing the lowest unit cost are now asking harder questions about exposure and reliability. Cotton does not need to win every argument. It only needs to be the more defensible bet in a market that has stopped rewarding recklessness.
Robert Antoshak, Vice President of Global Strategic Sourcing & Development at Grey Matter Concepts, brings over 30 years of experience in the textile and apparel sector. He has advised governments, led consulting projects worldwide, and written extensively on global trade, sustainability, and sourcing. Previously a Partner at Gherzi Textil Organisation, he continues to shape industry perspectives through his articles and thought leadership.
Antoshak is a regular contributor to just-style.com and sourcingjournal.com. He is also an Advisory Board Member of Fashion Business Journal.
