AMTAC 'No' for PNTR to Vietnam sans adequate safeguards
13 Jul '06
5 min read
The inability to combat these unfair trade practices has resulted in an unmitigated disaster for U.S. manufacturers attempting to compete with the Chinese industrial juggernaut.
It would be wise to acknowledge this painful lesson and require that Vietnam become a much more transparent and market-driven economy before we bestow the full privileges of WTO membership.
Consequently, China has been the main driver for our record $717 billion trade deficit, with China accounting for a staggering $202 billion of that deficit last year.
Textiles & Apparel Vietnam is a proven, capable and aggressive textile competitor. Since the granting of Temporary NTR to Vietnam in December 2001, their textile and apparel exports to the U.S. have grown by neatly 6,000 percent. Over the past 12 months alone, they shipped $3.1 billion of textiles and apparel to the U.S.
The growth of imports from Vietnam has come at the expense of numerous other producers including those in the United States as well as our free trade partners.
For example, textile and apparel imports from Mexico and the CAFTA countries fell more than $2.3 billion dollars, over the period since Vietnam was given temporary NTR.
In 2005, textiles and apparel accounted for 53% of the $5.4 billion U.S. trade deficit with Vietnam.
This deficit would have been even greater had quotas not been imposed on numerous textile and apparel categories in 2003.
The reason why Vietnam has been able to grow its trade surplus so quickly is because it undervalues its currency, just like China and heavily subsidizes its industry.
marketing@alchempro.com
