Free Trade huh?

Bill Clinton wouldnta done somethn lak this...

U.S. Opens Challenge to Chinese Textiles

So much for free trade!

What's weird is this rash of protectionism was prompted by

"...last week that showed very sharp increases in many categories of Chinese imported clothing during the first quarter of 2005. Imports of Chinese-made cotton trousers, for example, soared about 1,500 percent, and imports of cotton knit tops rose 1,250 percent."

yet when I looked at Emerging Textiles site I get

"China's exports of men's and boys' woven cotton shirts (HS 620520) were up 48% in the two first months of the year, rising from 33 million pieces in the same period of 2004 to 49 million units. Shipments increased by nearly 53% in value terms to US$193 million after average unit price was raised by 3.64% to US$3.91 per shirt."

So volume is up 48% and value increased 53%.

I must be missing something here for cotton knit tops. Maybe 1250% is Year over Year increase, and the 48% is only the first two months. (which might still be a large increase, I don't have a feel yet for the industry)

But then the quotas only ended last year.

"At year-end 2004, a three-decade-old system of quotas on international textile and apparel shipments expired"

Hmmm...