US must prepare for new China challenge
16/10/2008
A senior member of the House of Representatives, Charles Rangel, has warned that the US could face a dramatic increase in imports of Chinese-made clothing and other textile products once a deal limiting those goods expires at year's end.
"I am concerned that a market disrupting surge in textile and apparel imports from China could occur; unfortunately, however, the administration does not appear to be taking these concerns seriously," the New York politician has said in a letter to Shara Aranoff, who heads the US International Trade Commission.
Quotas on Chinese textiles were eliminated under a World Trade Organisation agreement in 2005. Imports of cotton trousers from China increased from 918,000 dozen in the first half of 2004 to 17,454,000 dozen in the first half of 2005. Mr Rangel also argued that sales from China crowded out imports from other countries, particularly poor nations in Africa, the Caribbean and Latin America, and contributed to the loss of thousands of US jobs.
The US and China agreed in November 2005 to limit imports from China, but that agreement expires this December 31.
Mr Rangel wants the commission to provide reports on the volume, value and import market share of certain textile and apparel imports from China. Textile industry associations and unions raised the possibility of new safeguards once the remaining quotas are removed.
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