AMTAC says 'no deal' with China at the cost of US textile industry
01 Oct '05
3 min read
(AMTAC) says significant progress in US-China textile talks. Major issues will still outstanding.
This week's round of textile negotiations between the United States and China concluded last night with significant progress in some areas but with significant differences between the two sides remaining. The US textile industry thanked US negotiators for their hard work and the industry's supporters on Capitol Hill for closely monitoring the talks. Both sides agreed to meet again to continue the negotiations.
The US textile industry reiterated its call for a comprehensive agreement that reasonably would limit China's growth of unfairly subsidized textile and clothing exports to the United States to a percentage close to the WTO safeguard level of 7.5 percent annually through the end of 2008.
"China's proposal is still unacceptable to the US textile industry in terms of breadth of coverage and in length (number of years covered). Despite apparent progress in the negotiations, no deal has been reached. The US textile industry remains steadfast in its promise to walk away from any bad deal because no deal is preferable to a bad deal," said American Manufacturing Trade Action Coalition Executive Director Auggie Tantillo.
"For the first time, China began to negotiate constructively, but it still has a significant way to go before we can reach a deal that the industry can support. Other key sticking points for the US textile sector include (1) the industry's ability to utilize the safeguard on categories not covered by the agreement and (2) growth levels given to China on covered product categories," added Cass Johnson, President of the National Council of Textile Organizations.
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