Textile Free Trade Agreements

AAFA: „The EU and the US have a wide range of product safety, chemical management and labelling requirements for clothing (including leg clothing), footwear, textiles and travel items…. However, they often have different requirements, such as testing. B or certifications, which significantly increase compliance costs…. We believe that the TRADE agreement between the United States and the EU is an important opportunity to achieve harmonization or reconciliation of these rules. Third, trade flows are increasingly unbalanced in the Western Hemisphere textile and clothing supply chain. On the one hand, textile and clothing exporters in the Western Hemisphere remain highly dependent on the region. In 2017, 80% of textile exports and 89% of clothing exports from Western Hemisphere countries went to the same region. On the other hand, the functioning of the Western Hemisphere supply chain is facing increasing competition from Asian suppliers. For example, in 2017, only 24.8% of textile imports from North, South and Central America countries and 15.7% of their apparel imports came from the region, a record level over the past decade. Textile and clothing products are immediately duty-free if they meet US-SFTA rules of origin. The original rule of wire is generally „fibre forward,“ which requires the fiber to come from Singapore or the United States.

The original rule for fabrics and clothing is essentially „wire forward.“ Therefore, in order to benefit from preferential tariff treatment, the product must have been cut (or knitted in shape) from U.S. or Singaporean yarn or yarn fabrics and sewn or otherwise assembled in Singapore. Textile and clothing products can also be considered native products if they contain only amounts of non-de minimis fibre or yarn or when fabrics or yarns are rare in the United States. In addition, a certain amount of clothing that is not native to cotton and synthetic or artificial fibres may enter the United States at a reduced rate. In order to deal with possible disruptions and damage to the U.S. industry, the U.S. SFTA also proposes certain protective measures for imports of textiles and clothing. The power to grant this protection assistance expires ten years after the US SFTA`s textile and clothing regulations came into force. The European Apparel and Textile Confederation (Euratex) has just published its position paper on the rules of origin of textiles and clothing (T-A) within the framework of the Transatlantic Trade and Investment Partnership (T-TIP). According to the document, free trade is not only about tariffs, but also about non-tariff barriers, such as rules, certifications and verification requirements.

And because today`s global brands sell everywhere, from the United States to Dubai to Britain and Japan, we`re also working to break down those barriers. In addition, the study stresses that stakeholder interaction, capacity building and monitoring mechanisms, supported by social dialogue, are essential to achieving positive labour market outcomes. In a specific case study on the textile agreement between Cambodia and the United States, the report finds that important interventions are being carried out at the corporate level, such as monitoring and compliance, improving wages at the enterprise level, including a significant reduction in the gender pay gap. Another case study indicates that capacity-building measures in Bangladesh following the Rana Plaza tragedy have resulted in some visible improvements in the number of trade unions, building safety and changes in the country`s labour law. According to the report, the United States is the world`s fourth largest exporter of textiles. In 2014, 54% of total ATT exports to the United States entered TPP markets. The United States is also the largest