July
21, 2004
WASHINGTON,
DC
– In the largest lobbying effort by the textile
industry in Washington
in more than 15 years, more than 100 textile
CEO’s and representatives
lobbied 48 House and Senate offices from more
than 25 states. The
purpose of the visits was to seek Congressional
backing in persuading the Bush Administration to
act to keep artificially
low-priced
Chinese imports from flooding the
US
market once quotas on imports from
China
are removed on January
1, 2005.
Allen
Gant,
Chairman of the National Council of Textile
Organizations, said, “This industry, in
collaboration with over 90 textile and apparel
groups from 49 countries around the world, is
appealing today to the Bush Administration to
stop China
from taking over world trade in textiles and
apparel.
Unless the Administration steps to the
plate, over the next two years, 75 percent of
the 702,000
U.S.
textile and apparel workers along with 30
million other workers around the world will lose
their jobs. Orders
are already shifting – our industries need to
see results from their
governments.”
Gant
said, “Specifically, the U.S. textile industry
has asked the Administration to recognize that
China poses a severe threat to the domestic
textile industry and to use
appropriate
safeguard actions, as allowed under WTO
rules.
To date, the Administration has refused
to consider safeguard actions before the actual
occurrence of damage in the marketplace. The U.S.
textile industry and the developing world cannot
afford to wait for actual damage to occur
because millions of jobs will be lost. Instead,
we urge that a comprehensive
safeguard mechanism be put into place
prior
to January 1 that will cover the more than $60
billion in textile and apparel imports still
under quota.”
U.S.
textile job losses have accelerated dramatically
during the last five years. In
the Carolinas alone, more than 94,000 textile
jobs have been lost while imports from China
have increased by almost 400 percent. In
categories where China has already been removed
from quota, imports have increased by over 900
percent during just the last 27 months. The
government has agreed to remove all remaining
Chinese quotas on January 1, 2005.
Auggie
Tantillo,
Executive Director of the American Manufacturers
Trade Action Coalition (AMTAC) said, “A tragedy
of enormous proportions
is not only about to befall hundreds of
thousands of US workers but also dozens of
countries that are important U.S. allies in the
war against terror. And all
of this because China does not play by the rules
and governments continue to let China off the
hook.”
Textile
leaders also announced that the industry had
agreed to launch a major media and grassroots
campaign in the Carolinas. The
media campaign will include
print,
radio and billboards highlighting the loss of
textile and manufacturing jobs and lack of
effective government action.
Another
component of the grassroots campaign will seek
to reach as many of the 156,500 textile and
apparel employees and their families in the
Carolinas as possible. It will
utilize voter registration drives, major
rallies, picnics and leafleting and direct
mail.
The campaign will be officially launched
on August 17 in North Carolina at which time the
industry will open a campaign office, also in
North Carolina.
James
Chesnutt,
Vice Chairman of NCTO, said, “Our back is to the
wall.
With China’s enormous unfair trade
advantages, this 200-year-old industry, still
the largest manufacturing employer in America,
will be wiped out within two years if the
government does not act. We have
no choice but to organize our workers, their
families and their communities and let them know
the consequences of continued government
inaction.
The industry has agreed to make the
necessary expenditures in the Carolinas to
ensure that it gets its message heard in
Washington, DC.”
On
the international front, industry leaders
confirmed that Mauritius had sent a request to
Director General Supachi of the World Trade
Organization and that the 70 member
African-Caribbean-Pacific Group of Nations (ACP)
had voted to back the Mauritius request.
Jonathan
Stevens,
Vice Chairman of the National Textile
Association, said: “The
unity this industry has shown here today should
send a message that its critical needs must not
be ignored. We are
asking for a simple thing – for the government
to use the textile safeguard in
precisely
the way the WTO set it up to be used. No
changes, no adjustments, just use it in the way
the WTO rules allow it to be used. And save
hundreds of thousands of American jobs in the
process.”
At
the press
conference, the industry was joined by
representatives
from Turkish, African and Mexican Textile and
Apparel Groups.
For
more information on the worldwide coalition
against a Chinese takeover of textile and
apparel trade, go to www.fairtextiletrade.org.
