Doris Matsui: “I urge very strong support of the rule. A vote against this rule will really be a vote against this bill. This bill will…”

“I urge very strong support of the rule. A vote against this rule will really be a vote against this bill. This bill will not come back up if this rule fails today. If in fact we lose this rule, we are not going to be able to bring this bill because the whole essence of this bill is the whole issue of trade and textiles. I will tell the Members, there is a lot of misleading information that has been passed around over the last few months. This bill will not do any damage to the U.S. textile industry. The fact of the matter is that right now, Africa gives about two-thirds of 1 percent of all U.S. textiles to the United States. In 10 years under this legislation, it will only go up to about 1½ percent. That is not going to do any damage. In fact the reality is it probably will not result in any more textiles coming to the United States than currently, mainly because we will see a displacement. Other countries in Asia will probably have less shipments of textiles as a result of this. This will only create, according to the International Trade Commission, which has done an objective study, about 600 jobs lost in the United States. The job gain will be phenomenal over the next 10 or 20 years. Africa has 680 million people. There are 48 nations in this region that we are talking about.”