By Nicholas P. Brown
NEW YORK/TOKYO (Reuters) -The Japanese founder of fashion brand Uniqlo said on Monday the U.S. may bear the highest price from the impact of tariffs on global trade.
Tadashi Yanai, Japan’s richest man and the chief executive of Uniqlo operator Fast Retailing, has been outspoken on the potential economic damage from wide-ranging tariffs imposed by the administration of U.S. President Donald Trump.
Yanai reiterated that sentiment on the sidelines of a Uniqlo event in New York City, where the company was promoting its LifeWear clothing and art collaboration with Japan’s Toray Industries and The Museum of Modern Art.
“I’m afraid the world could (go) bankrupt,” Yanai said through a translator. “America is the one that could suffer the most,” he said, without elaborating.
Fast Retailing is an apparel powerhouse throughout Asia, and is charting an aggressive growth campaign in Europe and North America.
In July, the company said higher U.S. tariffs would start impacting its American operations significantly from later this year and it planned to raise prices to mitigate the blow.
The majority of Uniqlo products sold in the U.S. are produced in Southeast Asia and South Asia.
(Reporting by Nicholas Brown in New York, Rocky Swift in Tokyo; Editing by Muralikumar Anantharaman)
