AP Review Questions Fabric in “Made in USA” Campaign Hats

An Associated Press review published July 8, 2016, found that at least one of five “Make America Great Again” hats bought from Donald Trump’s campaign website, all labeled “Made in USA,” was made from fabric that did not match the U.S.-made material its manufacturer said it always used.

Who makes the hats

The hats are sewn at Cali-Fame of Los Angeles Inc., a small factory in the Los Angeles area. Owner Brian Kennedy gave the AP a certificate dated March 24, 2016, for 1,488 yards of U.S.-origin red polyester-cotton fabric, called Saxtwill, from Carr Textile Corp. of Fenton, Missouri. He also provided three Carr certificates from September 2015 for parts of black and white hats.

The fabric test

The AP got two red fabric samples from Carr, one U.S.-made and one imported. It asked Deborah Young, a textiles professor at the Fashion Institute of Design and Merchandising in Los Angeles, to compare them with two campaign hats without telling her which sample was which.

• The fabric in one hat matched neither Carr sample. Carr’s Saxtwill is a 2/1 weave, but that hat had a 3/1 weave. “There’s no way this hat was made out of either (Carr) sample,” Young said.
• The other hat, and three more the AP bought later, could have used either Carr’s U.S.-made fabric, its cheaper imported fabric or another source.
• The analysis could not determine where the mismatched fabric came from.

Conflicting accounts

Two Cali-Fame employees, including top sales agent Andy Meade, said the hats used imported fabric and other parts. “It’s domestic made of imported,” Meade told a distributor who called at the AP’s request. Kennedy said the employees were wrong. “I’m not using imported materials,” he said. “We’re playing by the rules.” He declined to explain the fabric mismatch, saying more detail would reveal proprietary information.

Told of the findings, Trump said any misrepresentation would be unacceptable and that the campaign would sue if the hats were not made in the USA. He said campaign staff had visited the factory and reviewed paperwork showing the hats qualified for the label.

The rules

The FTC treats a product as Made in USA only when “all or virtually all” of it is made in the USA, with all significant parts and processing of U.S. origin. A hat sewn in the USA from imported fabric could use a qualified label such as “Made in U.S. of imported fabric.” California required that 95% of a Made in USA product’s value come from U.S. sources unless key parts were unavailable domestically. The FTC declined to comment on the hats.