To many in the fashion industry, the days after Donald Trump’s April 2 tariff announcement had a familiar, sinking feeling to them.
“I’ve heard this analogy a number of times from my members: It feels a lot like the first few weeks of March [2020] when Covid was hitting and everything was closing down,” said Matt Priest, president and chief executive of Footwear Distributors and Retailers of America, the largest footwear trade association in the US. “Our members were trying to think…

