Cotton Supply and Fabric Buyers
Table of Contents

⚠ Disclaimer: This entry may be incomplete, out of date, or inaccurate. It is AI-maintained on a best-effort basis. Do not rely on it as a sole source — verify claims independently using the sources listed below.

Summary

Cotton is grown in a handful of countries but milled in a different set. The United States grows about 13.6 million bales (2026/27 USDA projection) but mills only about 1.6 million, exporting roughly 90% as raw fiber to Vietnam, Pakistan, Mexico, Turkey, and others. For finished quilting fabric, the dominant buyer is the United States itself, whose quilting fabric is made mostly overseas.

Key Facts

  • Type: supply-chain / market data
  • Status: Projections for marketing year 2026/27 (USDA ERS, August 14, 2026)
  • World cotton: production 117.6M bales, mill use 122.9M bales, trade 43.8M bales, stocks-to-use 57%
  • U.S.: production 13.6M bales, exports 12.3M, mill use 1.6M, ending stocks 4.0M (1 bale = 480 lb)

What It Is / How It Works

Where cotton is grown (2026/27 projection, million bales)

Country Production
China 33.5
India 24.0
Brazil 18.25
United States 13.6
Pakistan 5.1
Australia 3.0

Brazil is the largest exporter (15.3M bales, 35% of world exports), followed by the United States (12.3M), Australia (4.5M), and India (1.5M).

Where cotton is milled and imported

Country Mill use (M bales) Imports (M bales)
China 42.0 7.0
India 26.5 3.0
Pakistan 10.2 5.0
Vietnam 8.2 8.2
Bangladesh 7.6 7.4
Turkey 6.8 4.8

On a metric-ton basis (USDA via Modaes, September 2025), 2025/26 imports ranked Bangladesh 1.76 Mt, Vietnam close behind, Pakistan about 1.28 Mt, China 1.1 Mt, and Turkey 1.02 Mt.

Where U.S. raw cotton goes (MY 2026, as of week ending October 8, 2026)

Rank Destination Thousand bales Share
1 Vietnam 1,427 25%
2 Pakistan 859 15%
3 Mexico 545 10%
4 Türkiye 373 7%
5 India 365 6%
6 Honduras 278 5%
7 Indonesia 247 4%
8 China 234 4%
9 Guatemala 215 4%
10 El Salvador 190 3%

Indonesia, where Kona reportedly was made in 2017, buys U.S. cotton (the U.S. is its third-largest supplier) and the United States is the second-largest importer of Indonesian cotton fabrics (USDA attaché report ID2025-0017). Korea, Japan, and Thailand — the other reported quilting-fabric origins — did not appear in the sources fetched.

Who buys fabric and garments

  • Apparel exports (WTO via Modaes, 2025): EU 30.8% ($177B), China 27.3% ($157B), Bangladesh $39B, Vietnam 6.5% ($38B), India 3% ($17B), Türkiye 2.9% ($17B), United States 1.1% ($7B). These are exports, which indicate where fabric is converted, not who buys fabric.
  • U.S. textile context (NCTO, 2025): shipments $60.9B (down from $63.9B), exports $27B, more than 40 plants closed in about 2.5 years; mill employment fell from 503,300 (January 1990) to 78,300 (August 2026) per federal data cited by Forbes.
  • Quilting fabric buyers: the U.S. has 9–11 million active quilters and an estimated $4.5B annual industry revenue (2025); 64% of supply purchases occur at local quilt shops. Other quilting-fabric countries were not researched.

Reindustrialization read-through

The raw-fiber surplus is the structural gap: nearly all U.S. cotton leaves before spinning. The domestic recoveries documented so far are downstream and partial — see Hamrick Mills and Reshoring Textiles. Equipment dependence is the second gap — see Textile Machinery Makers.

Notable Developments

  • 2026-10: Weekly export sales put Vietnam at 25% of U.S. MY 2026 raw cotton commitments.
  • 2026-08: USDA projected 2026/27 U.S. production of 13.6M bales and world production down about 4%.
  • 2026-02: Section 122 10% global tariff replaced invalidated IEEPA tariffs.

Sources

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