U.S. textile group calls for China trade reforms

U.S. textile group calls for China trade reforms    The American Manufacturing Trade Action Coalition (AMTAC), which represents U.S. textile and apparel manufacturers, has called for the United States to reassess its trade policy with China after new figures showed the U.S. trade deficit with China will likely exceed $200 billion for 2005.
   The latest figures, released by the U.S. government, come “on the heels of China’s announcement in December that it had underreported its gross domestic product by $280 billion,” AMTAC said in a statement.
   AMTAC urged Congress to pass Senate bill S. 295, the Schumer-Graham legislation, to penalize China if it refuses to float its currency. AMTAC has also insisted that, considering the true size of China’s economy, the United States should not allow China to claim “developing country” status in the ongoing Doha Round negotiations of the World Trade Organization (WTO).
   “Enough is enough,” said Auggie Tantillo, executive director of AMTAC. “China manipulates its currency, subsidizes its banking and industrial sector, and misreports its economic numbers. Meanwhile, the United States has hemorrhaged nearly three million manufacturing jobs over the past five years — with China as one of the chief culprits causing those job losses.”
   U.S. policymakers should realize “that China is a superpower in terms of international trade. The only way to rein in the job-destroying trade deficit is for the U.S. government to demonstrate to the Chinese that they will not get unlimited access to our markets when they use unfair trade practices to run U.S. industry of business,” Tantillo said.
   In urging long-term reforms, AMTAC cited the need for major revisions to U.S. tax policy. “The United States is the only large industrialized nation that has an income-based tax system. Everyone else has a value-added tax system that drives up the U.S. trade deficit. Countries with VAT taxes, often in the range of 15 to 20 percent, assess the tax on all imports and rebate it on all exports, putting U.S. manufactured goods at a substantial price disadvantage both home and abroad,” AMTAC explained.