The Black hair industry imports products from China. Here’s what tariffs mean for braids and wigs.

AP via Boston Globe Media ^ | May 31, 2025 | CHARLOTTE KRAMON

[Salman]

ATLANTA (AP) — Before the oppressive summer heat descends on Atlanta, therapist Brittanee Sims usually gets her thick, curly hair braided at a salon to preserve her healthy mane.

But it’s more expensive this year. So she’ll only pay for her teenage daughter and son to get their summer hairdos. Not having braided hair “creates more of a hassle for everything,” said Sims, who counts herself among the tens of millions of women who regularly spend on the Black hair care industry.

Now, she said, she has to “go home and figure out what I’m gonna do to my hair in the morning, after I went to the gym and it’s messed up with sweating and frizz.”

President Donald Trump’s tariffs are driving up prices for products many Black women consider essential, squeezing shoppers and stylists even more as they grapple with inflation and higher rents. Much of the synthetic braiding hair, human hair for extensions, wigs and weaves, styling tools, braiding gel and other products are imported from or have packaging from China, which was subject to a combined 145% tariff in April. India is also a major global source of human hair.

...

[Salman]

More proof Trump is a racist, right?
Black women want Chinese hair. So they wear the hair of Chinese slaves.

Notice how it opens with a sob story before getting to the actual news.

[HYPOCRACY]

Bald is the new thing with blacque womyn. Enjoy your new look baldy!

[Robert A Cook PE]

If government money pays that “therapy” job salary, she is yet another Atlanta government/health care/mandated insurance expense subsidy - but it is not direct welfare.

[Opinionated Blowhard]

Its too bad the AP didn’t take this much interest when illegals were flooding across the border to take the jobs of black US citizens.

[thegagline]

Cultural appropriation, one strand at a time.

[1_Rain_Drop]

I wasn’t aware black women were so high maintenance... on hair.
Wonder if they’ll sacrifice the long fake nails just to be able to pay for their extensions.
Wonder how their ancestors survived.

[1_Rain_Drop]

Is it wrong to ask a black woman if her hair is made in china?

[Sirius Lee]

Why no one want Sirius Lee's pretty red hair?

[Drew68]

Congresswoman Milk Dud, "Trump did this!"

[chajin]

We’ve been dreading this for a while now.

[LastDayz]

Milk Dud..... ROTFLMAO.... dang near spewed my monitor.

[PGR88]

I wasn’t aware black women were so high maintenance... on hair.

And fingernails too. The Vietnamese take care of that.

[HartleyMBaldwin]

Yawn. Time for a nap.

[FreedomPoster]

That is such a hideous “look”. I really don’t get it.

[SaveFerris]

Thanks for discovering Fire and inventing the Wheel.

[bert]

Acctually the bald look is the ancient tribal lice cut. Very close cut hair makes finding lice easier.

[Brian Griffin]

How about creating some jobs in the ‘hood instead of using imports?

[RushIsMyTeddyBear]

They also import from India.

[dfwgator]

Heaven forbid if an enterprising black person could pick up the slack.

[HighSierra5]

Every day is a bad hair day for those folks.