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Cotton

What world events mean for cotton — the exporters, the routes, and the retail endpoint.

Market stress
6/10Significant
12-month price change
+30.1%
Sep ’25 → Sep ’26
Top exporter
30.7%
Brazil · of world exports

In your life

Apparel (CPI, US)

  • BLS doesn't publish a per-unit price for apparel prices — the published retail measure is the Apparel (CPI, US) index, at 136.752 in August 2026 (1982-84=100).
  • When cotton prices jump, apparel prices usually follows 9–18 months later.
  • Last time this happened: when cotton futures jumped +223% (5 Feb 2010 → 4 Mar 2011), apparel prices moved Jan 2011 (116.664) → Dec 2011 (123.470, +5.8%) → Mar 2012 (127.258, +9.1%) (BLS CUUR0000SAA).
  • Other forces were pushing too: Labor, freight and retail margins dominate apparel prices — cotton is a small cost share; 2011–12 broad inflation also lifted the index.

BLS Consumer Price Index — CPI-U, Apparel, U.S. city average, not seasonally adjusted (CUUR0000SAA; FRED alias CPIAPPNS) Lag basis: Beltwide 2012 cotton pass-through study (Cotton Incorporated/ICAC analysis): Apparel CPI responded to fiber price moves with a lag of >9 months.

Cotton is in your everyday life as your t-shirt.

World map of Cotton exporters

Circle size ∝ share of world exports — country area does not imply volume

Top exporters
Ranked by share of world exports (2024 trade value).

Brazil

30.7% of world cotton exports · 2024 trade value

Top 3 exporters: 71.2% of world exports.

Brazil accounts for 30.7% of the world's exported cotton by value — a disruption here travels through the buyers and companies below.

See who depends on it ↓

Documented supply-chain relationships — independent of your scenario assumptions.

Cotton
Apparel retail shelf and consumer

t-shirts · jeans · baby apparel · bedding

No documented company exposure in our sources for Yarn spinning and textile mills.

A cotton supply shock would likely first appear in futures and cash bids — timing and size are not established in our sources.

Trade structure

Critical exporters & importers

2024 vintage · annual data, 1–2y lag

Top exporters

  • Brazildominant

    30.7% of world exports

  • United Statesdominant

    26.8% of world exports

  • Australia

    13.7% of world exports

  • India

    5.5% of world exports

  • Benin

    3% of world exports

Next tier: Turkey (2.8%), Greece (2.5%), Burkina Faso (2.1%)

Top importers

  • China

    28% of world imports38.2% from Brazil

  • Bangladesh

    15.1% of world imports25.9% from India

  • Vietnam

    14.7% of world imports41.2% from Brazil

  • Turkey

    8.8% of world imports30% from Brazil

  • Pakistan

    7.9% of world imports39% from Brazil

An importer is “critical” here by share of world cotton imports; the per-exporter dependency underneath is what makes a shock travel. 2024 vintage · annual data, 1–2y lag — annual data, 1–2y lag.

Moves through: Strait of Malacca

Market stress data as of Sep 24, 2026 from the commodity supply-risk monitor.

Cotton — market stress 6/10 (Significant) | Morrowfly