California Apparel News

The man in the middle of the brouhaha over apparel and textile safeguard measures was in Los Angeles recently.

Jim Leonard, the assistant deputy secretary for textiles at the U.S.

Department of Commerce, spoke at a March 16 seminar on exporting apparel to areas such as Europe. The event was organized by the California Fashion Association and held at the organization’s downtown office.

Leonard, who is the chairman of the Committee for the Implementation of Textile Agreements (CITA), has been in the thick of the quota controversy. It is his agency that decides whether to impose safeguard measures, or temporary quotas, on various apparel and textile imports from China. Apparel and textile quotas disappeared on Jan. 1 for all World Trade Organization members.

Currently, the only safeguard measure in effect is for socks, and that expires at the end of October. But apparel and industry executives have requested that safeguard measures be implemented for 12 other categories, including cotton trousers, cotton shirts and knit fabrics.

Initially, CITA had been planning to consider safeguard measures whenever industry representatives cited a threat from a particular import category. Traditionally, safeguard measures have been imposed only after market disruption has been shown. But CITA never got to consider any kind of safeguard measure. Late last year, the U.S. Court of International Trade issued a preliminary injunction stopping CITA from considering threat-based petitions.

Nevertheless, Leonard noted that CITA can self-initiate a petition if it feels it is necessary. “There is a lot of pressure to self-initiate, and we are looking at it,” said the one-time textile executive, who spent 34 years at Burlington Industries.

Talk of safeguard measures has heated up since figures showed that imports of Chinese-made apparel and textiles increased 47 percent in January, compared with the same period in 2004. “In 45 categories, imports from China were up more than 100 percent,” Leonard noted.

This is one reason the U.S. government recently announced it will step up its monitoring of apparel and textile imports.

Carlos M. Gutierrez, the new secretary of the U.S. Department of Commerce, noted that his agency will be setting up a new system that lets the government more quickly access information on apparel and textile imports. “This action demonstrates the commitment of this administration to put in place the tools necessary to enforce our trade agreements and level the playing field to support our domestic textile and apparel industry,” Gutierrez said in a statement.

The system should be in place by early April. At that time, the preliminary date on apparel and textile imports will be available for the first quarter of 2005 and will be posted every two weeks at www.otexa.ita.doc.gov. —Deborah Belgum