CITA chairman won?t reveal how members voted on safeguard petitions

CITA chairman wonÆt reveal how members voted on safeguard petitions    Jim Leonard, chairman of the Committee for the Implementation of Textile Agreements, refused a request from Shippers' NewsWire to reveal how CITA's members have voted during recent petitions submitted by U.S. domestic textile and apparel manufacturers for additional safeguards on products from China.
   'I will not tell you that,' said Leonard during a question-and-answer session following a speech Tuesday at a conference in New York sponsored by the United States Association of Importers of Textiles & Apparel (USA-ITA). 'According to our policy, I cannot.'
   CITA, viewed by importers of textiles and apparel as often favoring U.S. domestic textile and apparel manufacturers, has recently accepted for review a series of petitions calling for safeguards against goods from China that, in the domestics' view, threaten markets and the domestics' own survival.
   CITA's members include representatives of the State, Treasury, Labor and Commerce departments, as well as the Office of the U.S. Trade Representative. Some dissent on the panel has been rumored but not confirmed.
   Leonard, who recently returned from a visit to Beijing, cited an 'improved relationship' between CITA and China, despite CITA's likely imposing of successive restrictions on goods made in China.
   'Just because we accept a petition for safeguards doesn't mean that we will ultimately approve it,' he cautioned.
   Asked when CITA would end its perceived shielding of U.S. textile and apparel makers, Leonard noted that under the rules of the World Trade Organization, 'an option to file China safeguards exists until 2008. We'll certainly be around that long.'
   And when opportunities to request safeguards finally end, Leonard hinted CITA will turn to antidumping suits and other stratagems.
   'We may look back on the quota regime as being the good old days,' Peter McGrath, chairman of JC Penney Purchasing Corp. and also chairman of USA-ITA, told attendees at the conference. Only 11 percent of those present thought that CITA would go away even after 2008.