Arlen Specter: “My amendment will strengthen our domestic dress shirt manufacturers and the pima cotton growers. My amendment is a…”

“My amendment will strengthen our domestic dress shirt manufacturers and the pima cotton growers. My amendment is a technical correction that levels the playing field by correcting an anomaly in our trade laws that has unfairly advantaged foreign producers and sent hundreds of jobs offshore. The amendment reduces duties levied on cotton shirting fabric, fabric that is not made in the United States. Currently, U.S. law recognized this lack of fabric availability and granted special favorable trade concessions to manufacturers in Canada, Mexico, the Caribbean, the Andean region, and Africa. The U.S. has allowed shirts to enter this country duty-free from so many other countries, while we have failed to reduce tariffs on those manufacturers that stayed in the U.S. and were forced to compete on these uneven terms. My amendment will correct this inequity. This amendment also recognizes the need to creatively promote the U.S. shirting manufacturing and textiles sectors, and does so through the creation of a Cotton Competitiveness grant program, which is funded through a portion of previously collected duties. Our country has experienced an enormous loss of jobs in the manufacturing sector. It is critical that our domestic manufactures be able to compete on a level playing field.”