THERE are few things quite so Colombian as the sombrero vueltiao. The black and white hats, woven from dried cane leaves, and whose name can be loosely translated as “turned hat”, are worn proudly on the Caribbean coast by cowhands, professors, merchants, cumbia dancers, politicians and visiting dignitaries. Pride in the elaborately made hats drove politicians to declare them a national cultural symbol. The price of a hat depends on how many pairs of tightly braided strands of dried cane leaf are used to make it. For tourists in the shady plazas of Cartagena or the busy pre-Carnaval streets of Barranquilla, they can range anywhere from $20 to $100. Members of the Zenú indigenous group hand-dye, weave and shape them in a process that can take up to a month. Unless, of course, they are mass-produced in China. Chinese manufacturers can turn out a machine-made vueltiao hat of synthetic fibres in just a few minutes. In Colombian wholesale markets, they now go for about $1.50 a piece; on the street they fetch around $5.50. Carlos Bellido, who sells the original vueltiao hats outside the posh Santa Clara hotel in Cartagena’s colonial centre, says the Chinese knockoffs were flooding the market, and many people, especially tourists, opted for the cheaper version of the hats. “I have nothing against the Chinese,” he says, “[but] their hats fall apart. They get floppy and unravel.”

Faced with the competition from China, Zenú artisans complained to local authorities, who sided with the craftsmen. On January 16th the Zenú sent out members of their Indian guard, armed with ceremonial staffs, to check the hats being sold in coastal cities and confiscate the knockoffs. The following day, authorities banned imports of the Chinese version, arguing that the hat enjoys a protected designation of origin. “Free trade in the 21st century has rules, Sergio Díaz-Granados, the trade minister, told indigenous leaders at a meeting this month to coordinate the government’s response. “It’s not the law of the strongest against the weakest.”

The resolution said that a product is illegal if in addition to “reproducing, imitating, creating a likeness or evoking a protected [product, it] also tries to substitute it in the market.” A fine of up to $330,000 is to be imposed on anyone caught selling the prohibited hats, and police in major Caribbean cities were ordered to round up the knockoffs. On January 26th alone, agents seized 800 hats worth about $6,700 in stores and street stalls in Barranquilla.

On a visit to Beijing in May 2012, Juan Manuel Santos, Colombia’s president, began discussions aimed at reaching a free-trade deal with China—the country’s second-biggest trade partner, trailing only the United States. The two countries declared that the first step is to define sensitive sectors that may be harmed by a trade deal. The sombrero vueltiao has shown some of the vulnerabilities even before a deal is done.