I sent an email to Scott Fortunoff and asked him these questions. He has quite a resume: He is President of A.E. Nathan Fabric, Blank Quilting, Studio E, Co-President of FreeSpirit, and Vice-President of Henry Glass Fabrics. He responded in less than 10 minutes to my inquiry!
Here is his reply:
That sounds like a bunch of stuff mushed together to create confusion. Here are the facts:
1. The 25% that they are probably referring to is the tariffs that may go into effect from China. The tariff is currently at 10% and prices probably have gone up a little. As a consumer, you may or may not notice this increase. If in March, the US and China don’t settle the trade dispute the tariff could go up 25%. That would only impact fabric and other stuff coming from China. With that being said, the majority of fabrics come from Korea. In any case, no one knows what will happen in March. Personally, and this is totally my opinion, I am not so confident that the US and China can settle. However, I hope they do.
2. China can’t possibly buy all the cotton futures. That’s just nonsense and I can’t really speak to that b/c I haven’t even heard anything like that.
Hope that helps.