Footwear industry divided on expectations for NAFTA's rule of origin

Footwear trade associations are divided over whether to loosen the North American Free Trade Agreement's rule of origin for footwear, with domestic producers wanting to keep the current rule and distributors and retailers angling to relax it to allow more foreign inputs in production. Under NAFTA, 55 percent of the value of a footwear product and the entire “upper” -- everything except the sole of a shoe -- must originate in the NAFTA region. The Footwear Distributors and Retailers of...