The National Council of Textile Organisations (NCTO) applauds the Trump administration’s this week’s Section 301 tariff announcement as necessary to resolve longstanding trade inequities with China. NCTO also says it believes that the administration’s continued focus on added tariffs on upstream textile inputs while thus far refusing to impose tariffs on finished Chinese textile home furnishing and apparel is flawed.

“The Trump administration is right to confront China’s unfair trade practices.  Section 301 tariffs show the world that countries which serially abuse US intellectual property rights (IPR) will be held accountable,” said NCTO President and CEO Auggie Tantillo.

“NCTO also thanks the Trump administration for removing various items from the latest retaliation list, including rayon fibre and certain dyes and chemicals. The US textiles industry requested the exclusion of these products because they are not available domestically and China is the only significant source of supply.”

“Had US textiles manufacturers been forced to pay higher duties on the excluded items, it would raise costs for manufacturers making goods that must compete with like Chinese products,” Tantillo added.

“Despite yesterday’s announcement, the US textiles industry remains of the belief that the administration’s strategy to impose Section 301 tariffs on inputs is not the most effective approach to penalise China for its rampant abuses of intellectual property rights in our sector.”

“Added tariffs on finished Chinese textile home furnishings and apparel is the most effective sanction the United States could impose on China because like products from the NAFTA and CAFTA regions using US-made textile inputs immediately become more competitive, thereby incentivising the reshoring textiles manufacturing jobs,” explained Tantillo.

NCTO is a Washington, DC-based non-for-profit trade association established to represent the full spectrum of the US textiles sector, from fibres to yarns to fabrics to finished products, as well as suppliers of numerous support services such as trucking, banking, chemicals, and other such sectors that have a stake in the prosperity and survival of the US textiles industry.

US textiles and apparel manufacturers produced US$ 77.9 billion in output in 2017, and the sector’s supply chain employs 550,000 workers from fibre to finished sewn products.

www.ncto.org

Further reading

NCTO supports efforts to address China’s unfair trade practices