Sen. Barack Obama, (D-IL) told the National Council of Textile Organizations that if elected President he will monitor imports of Chinese textiles and apparel once safeguards are removed.
The Democratic Presidential candidate also said he would:
- preserve the yarn forward rule in free trade agreements,
- support the “buy America” Berry Amendment, which requires that the Department of Defense source U.S. made textile products,
- increase funding and enforcements efforts regarding unfair trade practices, and
- use all diplomatic means to end Chinese currency manipulation.
Obama disclosed his position in response to a six-point questionnaire issued by the trade organization, which represents domestic textile companies. Sen. John McCain (R-AZ) had not responded to the survey as of Friday.
On the issue of monitoring of Chinese textile and apparel trade, NCTO noted that the Obama commitment was particularly significant because it applies to all U.S. trade laws, including both China (421) safeguard as well as dumping and countervailing duty cases.
Warlick commented, “Because of Chinas long history of surging into the U.S. market, a China monitoring commitment is crucial to ensuring that the U.S. government can move quickly to prevent a damaging surge which could threaten tens of thousands of U.S. textile jobs once safeguards are removed on January 1st.”
