US Textile Trade Policy and the Proliferation of Managed Trade

Abstract

Enacted initially in the late 1950s as a temporary protective scheme to stem import surges, US textile policy has been widely adopted elsewhere and has become an intransigent feature of the world trading system. The practices initiated between the US and Japan have spread to virtually every textile product and to every country with a significant textile and clothing trade. The industries involved in textile and clothing production provide good jobs and upward mobility for Third World workers, while in industrial countries they are either being mechanised or are becoming dying industries. Although production in industrial countries has been noncompetitive for decades, the extreme trade restrictions remain in place under the pretence of helping the industries adjust.