U.S. appeals court lifts injunction prohibiting China safeguards

U.S. appeals court lifts injunction prohibiting China safeguards    The U.S. Court of Appeals for the Federal Circuit has lifted an injunction issued by the Court of International Trade that prohibited the U.S. government from ruling on 12 threat-based China safeguard petitions filed by the U.S. textile industry in 2004.
   The appeals court issued its stay one week before hearing oral arguments May 5 on the same injunction.
   Judge Richard Goldberg of the Court of International Trade issued the injunction Dec. 30, 2004, effectively blocking any implementation of threat-based China safeguards by the Bush administration acting through the Committee for the Implementation of Textile Agreements (CITA).
   The three-judge appellate panel disagreed with Goldberg on the issue of who would suffer irreparable harm if safeguards were imposed: apparel importers or the government. 'We find the injuries identified by the government sufficiently irreparable, substantial, and tied to the public interest,' the appeals court said.
   In the view of the appellate panel, 'much of the trade court's analysis ' is unpersuasive.' The appeals court added that although claims in the case made by the United States Association of Importers of Textile and Apparel (USA-ITA) were 'likely to fail' on their merits, the lifting of the injunction would not bind 'the ultimate resolution of this appeal.'
   'The government has made a strong showing' that published CITA procedures, 'when properly interpreted, allow consideration (of) whether to request consultations with China (based) on current data suggesting a threat of future market disruption,' the appeals court noted.
   The stay of Goldberg's injunction allows CITA to rule on safeguard petitions, and issue restrictions covering U.S. imports of Chinese-made trousers, shirts and underwear in as little as one to six weeks.
   'The wrongly issued injunction from the U.S. Court of International Trade prevented the U.S. government from considering our threat-based cases for four months, during which more than 17,000 U.S. textile and apparel manufacturing jobs and millions of dollars in business have been lost. Accordingly, it is imperative that the U.S. government stop the bleeding and approve our threat-based cases immediately,' said Auggie Tantillo, executive director of the American Manufacturing Trade Action Coalition (AMTAC) in Washington, D.C.
   'This ruling vindicates the belief of the U.S. textile industry that the claims made by the USA-ITA were without merit,' Tantillo added.
   Laura E. Jones, executive director of USA-ITA in New York, said: 'Although we are certainly disappointed by the appeals court's decision, USA-ITA is undeterred. We have demonstrated to the government that the importing and retailing community will speak out when the Bush administration tries to change the rules to suit political whims.'
   'We have no doubt that we will prevail in the end, and that the courts will rule that CITA has to follow its own rules,' Jones said.