Textile Industry Comments On Causes Of Significant U.S. Trade Deficits

Four U.S. textile trade associations – the National Council of Textile Organizations (NCTO), American Fiber Manufacturers Association (AFMA), Narrow Fabrics Institute (NFI), and United States Industrial Fabrics Institute (USIFI) – outlined causes of the $95 billion U.S. trade deficit in textiles and apparel and suggested remedial actions for the Trump administration to boost U.S. production and jobs in joint comments submitted to the U.S. Department of Commerce (DOC) on May 10, 2017.

In addition, NCTO’s Upholstery Fabrics Committee (UFC) submitted a separate statement detailing the reasons for the U.S. trade deficit in upholstery fabrics, focusing on the imbalance with China particular.

"A trade deficit study like this should have been initiated years ago," said NCTO President and CEO Auggie Tantillo as he praised President Trump for ordering the review.

"If America is to reverse its trade-related red ink and create more jobs, policymakers must have a better understanding of the policies and economic factors responsible for driving production offshore," Tantillo added.

The joint NCTO, AFMA, NFI, and USIFI comments as well as the separate UFC statement were submitted in response a notice for public comments issued by the DOC and the Office of the U.S. Trade Representative (USTR) pursuant to Executive Order 13786 signed by President Trump on March 31, 2017. The order directed those agencies to prepare an omnibus report on significant trade deficits. The Federal Register notice for public comments is at 82 FR 16721 and is dated April 5, 2017 (DOC 2017-0003).

NCTO, AFMA, NFI, and USIFI also were signatories to comments submitted by the Manufacturers for Trade Enforcement (MTE) to DOC urging the United States to continue to treat the People’s Republic of China (PRC) as a nonmarket economy (NME) country under U.S. antidumping and countervailing duty law.

"China's widespread use of nonmarket economic activities is one of the biggest drivers of America’s trade deficit," Tantillo said.

DOC's notice for the NME comments (ITA-2017-0002) was issued as part of the its less-than-fair-value investigationof certain aluminum foil imports from the PRC.

For more information about the U.S. textile industry, please consult the 2017 State of the U.S. Textile Industryaddress delivered by 2016 NCTO Chairman Robert "Rob" H. Chapman, III at NCTO’s 14th Annual Meeting on March 23, 2017 at the Capital Hilton in Washington, DC. Chapman’s speech outlined (1) U.S. textile supply chain economic, employment and trade data as well as (2) the 2017 policy priorities of NCTO members.

NCTO is a Washington, DC-based trade association that represents domestic textile manufacturers.

U.S. employment in the textile supply chain was 565,000 in 2016.
The value of shipments for U.S. textiles and apparel was $74.4 billion last year, a nearly 11% increase since 2009.

U.S. exports of fiber, textiles and apparel were $26.3 billion in 2016.

Capital expenditures for textile and apparel production totaled $2 billion in 2015, the last year for which data is available.