Lindsey Graham: “Finally, we will not prevent the continued importation of Chinese products to the United States by voting against this…”

“Finally, we will not prevent the continued importation of Chinese products to the United States by voting against this legislation. For example, under the WTO agreement on textiles and clothing, U.S. import quotas on Asian textiles will be phased out in 2005. China is currently scheduled to benefit by that 2005 phaseout of Asian quotas. It is anticipated that this phaseout of Asian quotas will result in significant increases in imports of textiles and garments that have been manufactured and assembled generally from Asian raw materials and textiles into the United States. However, under the bilateral accession agreement, the United States negotiated a special textile-specific import safeguard which will remain in place until the end of 2008. Therefore, by defeating this underlying legislation to grant permanent normal trade relations to China, we will actually be doing harm to the U.S. textile and apparel industry. We will not, by failure to pass this legislation, affirmatively address any of the genuine concerns which have been expressed about our relations with China.”