Front Page	E-mail PagePrint Version

Injunction temporarily blocks any move by Washington to impose punitive quotas

NEW YORK - 01/02/05 - A US judge has temporarily blocked the US Commerce Department (DOC) from imposing emergency restrictions on imports from China in a move that backs clothing US retailers and opposes the allegations of domestic apparel and textile producers.

The decision comes just as quota restrictions on Chinese textile and apparel imports, put in place as the result of a 1994 trade agreement, expired yesterday.

The temporary injunction - issued by Judge Richard Goldberg of the US Court of International Justice in New York - was in response to a lawsuit brought early last month by the US Association of Importers of Textiles and Apparels (USA-ITA), a national apparel trade group which represents leading clothing importers and retailers. 

The New York-based trade group sued to stop the DOC from slapping punitive quotas on billions of dollars worth of Chinese-made trousers, underwear, and other clothing set to be imported by US importers next year.

In the decision, Goldberg found that the trade group "has suffered, and will continue to suffer, irreparable injury" if the quotas are put in place.
 
He also said the retailers "raised sufficiently serious and difficult questions regarding the propriety" of the government's proposed actions, according to the decision.
 
It was not immediately clear how long the injunction would last or what both sides' next options might be.

The US retailers are opposed by US textile producers, who have filed more than a dozen petitions with the Bush Administration asking for the curbs on what they feel will be a "flood" of inexpensive Chinese-made textiles and apparel undercutting their share of the huge US market.

US retailers have been anxiously awaiting the end of the quota system and have accused Washington of caving into pressure from domestic textile producers by agreeing to consider petitions based on nothing more than the "threat" of a surge in Chinese-made imports.
 
According to the retailers, the petitions are simply attempts by the US textile producers to continue what they call the "failed protectionist practices of the past 40 years."
 
Eric Autor, vice president and international trade for the National Retail Federation, told the trade magazine that, "If US retailers can't get sufficient merchandise from China, they'll simply turn to other foreign manufacturers, not US manufacturers."

Domestic manufacturers in the US, "who have trouble competing with China on the products in question refuse to acknowledge that the apparel market today is global, and they need to engage in that market," he said.

The only people who would benefit from the quotas, he added, "are a handful of Chinese businessmen who hold quota allocation rights."
 
China responded several weeks ago to the quota threat warning Washington that any import quotas placed on Chinese textile products "would seriously impact bilateral trade ties," and that it "reserved the right to take up the issue with the World Trade Organization."

Go back, or read the latest Front Page stories:

Major California Trade Conference Planned

01/30/05 – The “Global California: Expanding Opportunities” conference will create a dialogue on the future of world trade services in California and how global, national, state, and local business trends and developments impact California's increasingly internationalized $1.4 trillion economy; select panels at the day-long event will share their expertise on a variety of topics including free trade opportunities for California-based companies; the state of the state’s transportation infrastructure; the role of Sacramento in facilitating and promoting trade; and how can the California ''brand'' be more effectively utilized to ''sell'' the state as a truly globalized trade center.