European Tariffs won’t Fix Fast Fashion - Impact-Based Trade Will
Ahmet Pazarcı advises against political theatre over structural change.
Europe processed 4.6 billion low-value imports last year – roughly 12 million parcels a day, the vast majority of which were shipped from China. Some of them may have landed on your own doorstep, sent by a brand you’ve never seen on a high street and delivered with surprising speed and ease.
The volumes alone show how far this has moved beyond ordinary e-commerce – it has become a parallel distribution system. But change is afoot. Because after years of handwringing, Brussels is finally slamming the brakes on ultra-fast fashion: finance ministers have voted to scrap the €150 exemption on low-value imports – starting in 2026, two years early. Member states are preparing their own levies.
It is a decisive shift in tone. Europe no longer sees Shein, Temu, and the flood of cheap imports as harmless convenience for its citizens, but as a structural threat to domestic industry, market integrity, and climate pledges.
But Europe’s tariffs lack important data: they will only tell you where something was made, not how it was made.
A flat levy cannot distinguish between a coal-fired dyehouse dumping wastewater and a factory powered by solar-powered steam and credible worker welfare systems. Custom officers see a price tag and place of origin, not a footprint – and that bluntness produces two predictable problems.
Firstly, it punishes volume, not harm.
Manufacturers across Asia have spent years upgrading to cleaner, more resilient production systems that Europe claims to want. Yet those investments earn them no advantage at the border.
Major garment manufacturer Youngone Corporation illustrates the gap between Global South investment and Western appreciation clearly. In its Vietnamese dyeing facilities, it has replaced traditional coal-fired boilerswith biomass boilers fueled by local rice-husk pellets. Sadly, this is part of a structural decarbonization movethat Europe’s tariff regime will not recognize.
The transformation is even more striking in Youngone’s operations in Bangladesh. In the Korean Export Processing Zone (KEPZ) outside Chattogram, what was once barren land has become one of the region’s most advanced industrial ecosystems: 2,492 acres regenerated, 2.7 million trees planted, 33 lakes created, and one of Bangladesh’s largest rooftop solar systems now generating 32-40 MWp of renewable electricity. The welfare of more than 31,000 workers is supported by health clinics, eye-care programs, childcare, and a new 100-bed hospital.
Here, women are being encouraged into supervisory roles, pursuing degrees while continuing to earn full salaries and receiving training on disease prevention, nutrition and financial literacy. These are measurable improvements – yet a flat parcel levy treats garments manufactured in this ecosystem the same as those made in coal-powered factories with untreated effluent.
The second issue is that instead of overcoming fast fashion, tariffs simply rearrange its pipelines.
Sellers adapt quickly, rerouting shipments or adjusting declared values, while the environmental and labour pressures remain unchanged. Consumers face higher prices, but the factories under the greatest strain – and the environments absorbing the pollution – see no relief. And when Europe fails to distinguish progress from negligence, it weakens the incentive for factories to keep improving.
If Europe truly wants to reshape fast fashion, it must evolve from volume-based punishment to impact-based trade.
The good news is the machinery for this already exists. Traceability tools that once felt futuristic now underpin U.S. forced-labour enforcement and form the backbone of Europe’s emerging product-passport system: forensic cotton testing, wastewater logs, emissions data, verified labour outcomes. But these systems only scale when the wide governance environment supports transparency and reliable data.
Manufacturing hubs are increasingly holding up their end of the bargain. In Bangladesh, the interim government is strengthening transparency and regulatory oversight by reviving stalled commissions, tightening scrutiny of the financial sector, and working with international partners on broader governance reforms. This has improved domestic and international confidence in the country because despite global volatility, growth is healthy, exports are rising, and sectors such as ready-made goods are making a significant contribution to the overall economy.
At the factory level, the results are already visible. Youngone ensures that the same facilities that restored land, expanded solar power, and eliminated coal also generate the auditable evidence Europe keeps asking for: real-time water-treatment records, emissions logs, renewable-energy verification and documented improvements in women’s advancement and worker wellbeing.
This is why tariff design needs to catch up. Europe can retain a universal handling levy, but importers should only reduce their costs when they can demonstrate that their goods come from factories meeting measurable standards on carbon, water, chemicals and labour.
There is also a cultural contradiction. Young Europeans are urged to buy ethically and avoid disposable fashion, yet trade rules treat all imports as morally indistinguishable. Consumers are asked to make ethical choices while producers face no differentiated consequences.
Impact-based trade closes that gap. It allows manufacturers that upgrade to compete on fairer terms and signals to ultra-fast platforms that opacity is no longer commercially viable.
Europe is right to close its loopholes. But if it stops there, it will have chosen political theatre over structural change. I’ve learned from Turkey’s own export cycles how strongly outcomes track the rules that govern trade. Looking ahead, the real differentiator will be measuring impact, not just the prices attached to goods.
Tariffs can raise the cost of fast fashion. Only impact-based trade can raise its standards.
Ahmet Pazarcı is a Turkish economist and former investment banker who advises businesses and investors on global market dynamics, supply-chain resilience and sustainable industrial growth. He is a founding member of the Turkish New Economy Association, where he contributes to research and policy discussions on trade competitiveness and economic modernization.
Photo by Yan Krukau
