NC Governor McCrory Presses Textile Disciplines in TPP
The Trans-Pacific Partnership textile and apparel chapter should include strong yarn forward rules of origin (ROO) with a limited short supply list composed of non-U.S. produced items, said North Carolina Governor Pat McCrory in a Sept. 24 letter (here) to U.S. Trade Representative Michael Froman. That discipline is an economic imperative in the face of a subsidy-dominated Vietnamese apparel export industry that has grown 15,000 percent in 10 years and is fuelled by Chinese inputs, said McCrory.
Sign up for a free preview to unlock the rest of this article
Timely, relevant coverage of court proceedings and agency rulings involving tariffs, classification, valuation, origin and antidumping and countervailing duties. Each day, Trade Law Daily subscribers receive a daily headline email, in-depth PDF edition and access to all relevant documents via our trade law source document library and website.
“Countries not part of the TPP negotiations, like China, should not be positioned to gain access to the TPP and the U.S. textile and apparel markets due to weak trade rules,” said McCrory. The fight over yarn forward ROO is pitting U.S. textile producers against apparel importers, while other U.S. industries fear market access will suffer due to strict ROO, some industry leaders and analysts said (see 13082011). Short supply items are those products determined to be not commercially available for the country in question. “If the short supply list is too large or includes products that are made in the U.S., it could undermine an otherwise well-crafted yarn forward agreement,” said McCrory.
Rep. Mike Michaud, D-Maine, argued in a Sept. 25 letter (here) to USTR Froman the TPP framework should include state-owned or state-controlled commercial enterprises (SOEs) rules, noting the threat Vietnamese SOEs pose to U.S. trade (see 13092702). A World Trade Organization Sept. 17 review of the Vietnamese economy advocated the restructuring of SOEs (see 13091819). The Michaud letter also came in the wake of a Senate letter to USTR that pressed currency disciplines (see 13092423).