BOSTON, September 22, 2004 -- Yesterday, at the 150th Annual Meeting of the National Textile Association, NTA members voted to ask the Bush Administration to immediately self-initiate China Textile Safeguards with regard to textile and apparel products scheduled to be removed from quota restraints on January 1, 2005.  

Highly-placed Administration officials have repeatedly and publicly assured NTA members that the China WTO accession agreement and the U.S. procedures for the safeguards permit consideration, now, of safeguards on goods still under quota until the end of the year. "The procedures say 'threat'; the agreement says 'threat'; and Grant Aldonas [Undersecretary of Commerce] has told us that the safeguard may be used against the threat posed by uncontrolled imports from China," said NTA Chairman, Jonathan Stevens. "And," continued Stevens, "if the Administration is serious about doing anything to help the 700,000 textile and apparel workers in North Carolina, South Carolina, and throughout the country, it would send a powerful message to the Chinese if CITA [the U.S. Committee for the Implementation of Textile Agreements] were to self-initiate safeguard cases."  

The safeguards which limit the growth in imports from China, were agreed to by China in the U.S.-China bilateral textile agreement of 1997 and incorporated into China's accession to the World Trade Organization. If imports of textile or apparel products from China cause or threaten to cause market disruption in the U.S. the U.S. may ask China to negotiate a voluntary restraint. An automatic limit of no more than seven and a half percent growth over the prior year's imports (six percent in the case of wool products) goes into place until the U.S. and China can reach an agreement on the level of restraints. The safeguard is applied for one year, and may be renewed for up to two more years.  

In 2003 a coalition of U.S. textile groups including NTA, filed safeguard actions on imports from China of three products groups that were removed from quota controls in 2002: knit fabrics, brassieres, and dressing gowns. In late December 2003 the U.S. announced restraints of one year duration on these products imported from China.  

NTA, formed in 1854, is the oldest industrial trade association in America. It's 151 members weave and knit fabric in the U.S.; manufacture yarns in the U.S. for the formation of fabrics; and dye, print, and otherwise finish fabrics in the U.S.  

Here is the text of the resolution passed at the NTA 150th Annual Meeting...

WHEREAS the U.S.-China bilateral textile agreement of 1997 and the U.S.-China WTO accession agreement explicitly permit the U.S. to take safeguard actions to control the growth of textile and apparel imports from China if, in the course of the phase-out of textile and apparel quotas, there is market disruption, or threat thereof;

WHEREAS the current procedures of the U.S. Committee for the Implementation of Textile Agreements (CITA) likewise explicitly permit the filing and action upon China Textile Safeguard petitions based on market disruption or threat thereof;

WHEREAS highly placed Administration officials have repeatedly assured the U.S. textile industry that properly framed threat-based petitions will be accepted by CITA;

WHEREAS the current integration schedule will expose all the remaining textile and apparel product categories, including many of the most sensitive product categories, to uncontrolled Chinese imports which will flood the U.S. market and threaten unprecedented disruption to the orderly development of trade;

WHEREAS in the apparel product categories that were removed from quota controls in 2002, imports from China immediately and precipitously grew to capture 72 percent of the U.S. market;

WHEREAS China has invested $21.2 billion in their textile and apparel sector in the period 2001 through July 2004;

WHEREAS China's Commerce Minister Bo Xilai has been recently quoted as stating that China has 90 million workers employed directly or indirectly in its textile and apparel industries;

WHEREAS multiple studies of the likely effects of unrestricted textile and apparel imports from China, including studies by the U.S. International Trade Commission, consistently estimate that China will take at least 50 percent, and likely as much as 70 percent or more, of the U.S. textile and apparel market;

WHEREAS failure to act to restrain growth in textile and apparel imports from China will further erode the already weakened U.S. textile industry and threatens the jobs of 700,000 domestic textile and apparel workers;

WHEREAS 96 trade associations representing the industries and workers of 54 separate countries have joined an international coalition seeking the extension of quotas due to the very real threat that China will monopolize the global market including that of the U.S.

WHEREAS China's surging exports are likely to cause the loss of 30 million jobs worldwide, many in countries on the front lines of the War on Terrorism such as Indonesia, the Philippines, Bangladesh, Sri Lanka, and Turkey;

WHEREAS the current safeguard procedures permit the U.S. government to self-initiate a safeguard action without the need for a petition from the affected U.S. industry;

WHEREAS U.S. officials have, on multiple occasions, assured the U.S. textile industry that CITA has the authority to self-initiate China Textile Safeguard investigations;

THEREFORE BE IT RESOLVED that the National Textile Association calls on the Committee for the Implementation of Textile Agreements to immediately self-initiate China Safeguard investigations in categories to be integrated in 2005 and in the three products, knit fabrics, brassieres, and dressing gown, currently the subject of safeguard restraints scheduled to expire in December 2004.

VOTED unanimously by the members of the National Textile Association present at the 150th Annual Meeting of the National Textile Association, September 21, 2004, Cooperstown, New York.