On the recordAugust 2, 2012
I ask unanimous consent that the quorum call be dispensed with. Mr. President, the bill we are considering this morning--the AGOA- CAFTA-Burma sanctions package--has several parts, but I want to focus on the very real impact that one provision will have on jobs in my home State of North Carolina. This provision would make non-controversial technical fixes to the Dominican Republic-Central American Free Trade Agreement. When the DR-CAFTA was first negotiated nearly a decade ago, the intention of all the parties was to preserve the benefits of tariff reductions on yarn for the countries at the negotiating table. That is how the United States has traditionally negotiated the textile chapter of its free-trade agreements. But when the DR-CAFTA was agreed to in 2005 an out-of-date definition for sewing thread was used that inadvertently allowed non-CAFTA nations to export a certain kind of yarn into the CAFTA region duty free. Textile manufacturers in countries like China began exploiting this loophole to substitute their yarn for U.S.-produced yarn, and this action severely damaged textile manufacturers in North Carolina and the rest of the United States. Let me give you one example. Unifi is a textile manufacturing company headquartered in Greensboro, NC, with plants throughout the State. Half of their employees tied to the thread business have lost their jobs since 2006 when CAFTA took effect and the yarn loophole was exposed. Unifi is not alone.…
