U.S. government signals delay on China safeguards

U.S. government signals delay on China safeguards    The U.S. Committee for the Implementation of Textile Agreements (CITA), an interagency government panel that deals with textile matters, has said it will extend its deadline to render decisions on 12 threat-based cases calling for safeguards on apparel imports from China. The cases were filed by the U.S. domestic textile industry in 2004.
   CITA called its extension 'a rescheduling of consideration.' For seven of the 12 petitions, the public comment time had closed before Dec. 30, the date that the Court of International Trade issued a preliminary injunction preventing CITA 'from considering or taking any further action on these requests and any other requests based on the threat of (U.S.) market disruption' by Chine apparel imports, CITA said in a statement Friday.
   On April 27, the Court of Appeals for the Federal Circuit granted the U.S. government's motion for a stay of the trade court's injunction. 'Thus CITA may now resume consideration of these cases,' CITA explained.
   In regard to the last five requests for threat-based safeguards, filed in the last quarter of 2004, the public comment period had not yet closed as of Dec. 30.
   'Although the committee was barred by the injunction from considering such comments while the injunction was in effect, those comments were retained and will now be considered. They need not be resubmitted,' CITA said.
   For the last five threat-based petitions only, interested parties are invited to submit 10 copies of comments no later than May 17 for synthetic filament fabric (category 620), May 23 for men's and boys' wool trousers (category 447); May 31 for knit fabric (category 222), June 6 for dressing gowns and robes (categories 350/650), and June 8 for brassieres and other body supporting garments (categories 349/649).
   For the first seven threat-based petitions for which the public comment period closed prior to the issuing of the trade court's injunction, CITA said it will determine 'within 60 calendar days' after May 6 if the United States will indeed seek consultations with China concerning possible safeguards.
   For the five threat-based petitions for which the public comment dates have been given above, CITA will determine within 60 days of the close of the various comment periods.
   CITA's statement, signed by the committee's acting chairman, D. Michael Hutchinson, was the panel's first public explanation since Dec. 30 of how it viewed the injunction issued by the Court of International Trade.
   CITA's five members come from the departments of State, Commerce, Treasury, Labor, and the Office of the U.S. Trade Representative.
   'This announcement could delay a decision on certain threat-based petitions until July, giving China significantly more growth to the baseline to which any safeguard would be applied,' the American Manufacturing Trade Action Coalition (AMTAC), a Washington-D.C.-based association of U.S. domestic textile and apparel companies, said in a statement.
   Safeguards, should they eventually come into effect on apparel and textile imports from China, would not cut the trade, but could only limit the growth of existing trade to a minimum of 7.5 percent (6 percent for wool products), AMTAC explained.
   'There is absolutely no reason for the U.S. government to stall the decision-making process any longer on cases where the public comment period has already closed. To do so would exhibit callous disregard by the U.S. government to the plight of beleaguered U.S. textile and apparel manufacturing sector that has lost approximately 380,000 jobs since January, 2001,' said Auggie Tantillo, executive director of AMTAC.
   U.S. domestic textile companies are 'on pace to lose another 50,000 jobs this year, most due to surging imports from China. The U.S. government has the power to act today on many safeguard cases and save jobs, yet inexplicably, it refuses to do so,' Tantillo said.
   Other observers said CITA's signal of delay would give the U.S. government time to interpret trade figures of imports during April and May.