DYSPEPSIA GENERATION

Read it.

Not free trade, mind you, but trade favoritism.

The textile industry is suddenly very chummy with the White House on trade, thanks to a geeky concept known as “yarn forward.”

As part of negotiations over the 12-nation Trans-Pacific Partnership, which includes the U.S., Japan and South Vietnam, the U.S. is insisting that only fabric produced from yarn made by a TPP country would be eligible for duty-free trade.

Why does that matter?

Since China isn’t a TPP member, Chinese-made fabric wouldn’t qualify. That’s important because Vietnam, a clothing-export powerhouse, often uses Chinese-made fabric—and that clothing wouldn’t be eligible for lower tariffs in the U.S. Vietnam would either have to develop its own fabric industry or import cloth from another TPP country to reap TPP benefits.

U.S. textile makers figure the yarn-forward rule could help keep China and Vietnam at bay when it comes to the U.S. market. The rule could also make Vietnam a more attractive place for U.S. textile-industry investment.

Yarn-forward is a “great start” for a TPP deal, says Jeff Price, president of a textile division at Milliken & Co., a big U.S. textile maker. Mr. Price also is chairman of the National Council of Textile Organizations, the U.S. textile-industry trade association.

For years Milliken considered yarn forward to be insufficient protection. The rule was developed to garner textile-industry support for the North American Free Trade Agreement in 1993. The company opposed Nafta and most every other trade agreement the U.S. proposed until its former CEO, Roger Milliken, died in 2010, as described in a page-one article in The Wall Street Journal.

“We wanted no Nafta,” says Milliken’s former chief Washington lobbyist, Jock Nash. “We didn’t see how we could benefit.”

This White House is all about cronyism, and American businesses are fine with that.

Next time you hear a Leftist wail about ‘corporate greed’, hold up a mirror.

This entry was posted on Tuesday, May 5th, 2015 at 04:18 and is filed under Dystopia Watch. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. Both comments and pings are currently closed.