Some Aspects of U.S. Textile Import Policy Relating to Selected Developing Asian Countries

This paper highlights some aspects of the practice of discrimination by the United States of America in its import policy for regulating the imports of “textiles” (including textiles and clothing) from selected developing Asian Countries under bilateral agreements within the framework of the current Multi Fiber Arrangement (MFA). We have selected five such countries for special study, namely, Hong Kong, China (Taiwan), Republic of Korea, India and Thailand. These countries have been selected for illustrating the effects of the relative degree of restrictions imposed by the U.S. in its current bilateral agreements with three different types of suppliers from the so-called “low cost” developing countries. The first three countries represent the category of “major suppliers”, the fourth one represents “middle level suppliers” and the last one represents the category of “new” or “marginal suppliers”. This paper presents the preliminary findings of the research on this subject being conducted by the author. It is divided into three sections. Section I briefly provides the background to the evolution of the U.S. textile import policy particularly towards Asian countries and the performance of the U.S. economy relating to the “textiles” sector as well as the effects of changes in the U.S. policies on its imports from the selected developing Asian countries. The period covered is 1973 to 1980. Section II presents a critical analysis of some of the effects of discriminatory U.S. textile import policy surveyed in Section I. A few concluding remarks are offered for further examination in Section III relating to the future policy options on the MFA in general and the U.S, Textile import policy in particular. On the basis of the evidence presented, this paper concludes that in implementing MFA-II (covering the period 1978-81), the U.S. has made it more restrictive than MFA-I (covering the period 1974-77). The developing Asian countries belonging to the categories of “major suppliers” and “middle level suppliers” have been systematically discriminated against by the U.S. in recent years. This has caused considerable dislocation to their economies which is neither adequately recognized nor compensated by the U.S, (and other countries practising such discrimination). Considering the improved performance of the U.S. textile and apparel industries in recent years, the paper urges the U.S. Government to liberalise restraints bilaterally and also help to get a more liberal MFA extended with mechanisms to strengthen its truly multilateral character. A few suggestions are made for this purpose.