Companies sourcing products in China face a potentially devastating 2006 from embargoes on the import of those products into the United States. Representatives of the domestic textile industry have petitioned the Committee for the Implementation of Textile Agreements (CITA), a Department of Commerce-led working group, to enforce the “safeguard provision” in China's World Trade Organization agreement.
The safeguard provision allows CITA to apply quotas on the volume of specific categories of textile and apparel imports from China, leading to eventual embargo of products in those categories.
Earlier this year, embargoes on man-made fiber pants (ski pants, waders, soft shell and waterproof pants and other active apparel); man-made fiber shirts; cotton and man-made fiber underwear and other synthetic filament fabric stranded millions of dollars worth of outdoor apparel at U.S. ports. While these embargoes are set to expire on December 31, 2005, moving them out of Customs will be a difficult process.
In September, the domestic textile industry filed petitions asking CITA to reapply quotas on apparel products currently embargoed and to apply new quotas on additional apparel categories, including:
CITA has requested public comment on these petitions with a deadline of November 10, 2005.
While OIA is sensitive to the position of the domestic textile industry and agrees the United States must enforce its international trade agreements, current embargoes are having a detrimental effect on the outdoor industry, particularly in apparel products that have little or no significant domestic manufacturing, and future quotas could devastate the industry.
OIA can help companies compose and send comments to the appropriate party(ies) prior to the Nov. 10th deadline and has established a Trade Working Group to guide OIA's work on this potential threat to our industry. More Action Alerts on this issue will follow in the next few days.
