Day: October 16, 2015

In an event hosted by the Council on Foreign Relations on October 15, 2015, U.S. Trade Reprehensive Michael Froman left a comment on the textile and apparel chapter (T&A) under TPP. He said that:”

“You know, we worked very hard to find solutions that could address the broad range of stakeholder interests here, even when we had conflicting interests here in the U.S. I’ll take textile as an example. You know, we have a domestic textiles industry that’s been investing in more production in the U.S., growing their employment in the U.S. And obviously we have a strong sector of our economy that brings in apparel from other countries, apparel importers and retailers. We worked very closely with both groups of stakeholders to come up with a solution, to come up with an outcome that we think both will be comfortable with and both will be supportive of. And that’s been very important to us to try and address the broad range of U.S. stakeholder interests, whether it’s labor, environment, importers, exporters, to make sure we’re covering everybody’s interests well.”

In the remarks, Forman also ruled out the possibility that TPP would be renegotiated. He said that:

“So this isn’t one of those agreements where, you know, you can, you know, reopen an issue or renegotiate a provision. This is one where, you know, every issue is tied to every other issue and every country’s outcome is balanced against every other country’s outcome. And so that’s the agreement that we’ll be putting forward under TPA for a vote by Congress.”

According to Inside U.S. Trade (October 9, 2015), the final TPP reflects some of the key priorities of the U.S. textile industry by allowing limited exceptions from the prevailing yarn-forward rules of origin and by including tariff phaseouts for “sensitive apparel items” of 10 to 12 years.

Besides the basket of goods that will become duty-free upon entry into force (which include cotton shirts and cotton sweaters), TPP sets up three other categories for tariff reductions on apparel:

Major exceptions other than the “short supply list” mechanism under TPP include:

• An “earned import allowance“ program for cotton pants made in Vietnam from third-country fabric by importing a specified amount of U.S. cotton pants fabric. This would allow cotton pants from Vietnam would enter the U.S. duty-free as soon as the agreement is implemented. It is said the ratio for the program is “close” to 1:1. However, for men’s cotton pants, there could be a 15 million square meter equivalents (SMEs) annual cap until year 10, after which it will increase to 20 million. There is no quantitative limit for the other types of cotton pants that can be shipped under the program, such as women’s, girls’ and boys’ pants.
• A limited list of cut-and-sew items that Vietnam and other TPP countries can ship to the U.S. under the preferential TPP duty rate. These include synthetic baby clothes, travel goods including handbags, and bras.