Fast fashion lifted some countries out of poverty. What happens when Americans stop buying?

In the heart of southern India’s centuries-old textile industry, tens of millions of garment workers spin cotton fibers into yarn each year.

They then dye large swaths of that yarn a dusty indigo hue before weaving it into a denim fabric that will eventually be cut and sewn into your favorite pair of light-washed low-rise jeans. They’re the kind that fit in that particular way so that you too can look like a member of the girl group Katseye, decked out in Gap denim at a cost of $90 apiece. Made in India.

But after President Donald Trump’s 50 percent tariff on Indian goods went into effect this August, those $90 jeans effectively now have to pay a $45 toll just to get into the United States.

That is, if India — the world’s second-largest textile manufacturer — gets to make them at all.