China and India trade barriers: US legislators want action

The top US legislators have urged the administration to take concrete action against China and India to break trade barriers, obstructing national export of textiles and apparel.
According to a Washington Correspondent James A. Morrissey, the leadership of the US House of Representatives, in a letter to President George W. Bush, has come down hard on China, charging that its "trading rights" and "distribution rights" effectively bar the imports that compete with the Chinese goods.
They urged the administration to take immediate action under the World Trade Organisation (WTO) dispute system to ensure that China complied with the WTO commitments.
The Democrats also singled out India because of its nine billion dollar textile and apparel trade surplus with the US.
They charged that "India is one of the most protected markets in the world and despite the fact that India's barriers to textile trade have been identified for three years running, no action has been taken."
The sharply worded letter, signed by all 10 Democrat leaders in the House of Representatives says: "It is not enough to simply sign a trade agreement and move on to negotiating the next one."
"To restore credibility to the trading system agreements have to be enforced," they added.
The letter was in response to the release of the annual National Trade Estimates report on trade barriers to the US exports to goods and services, investments and intellectual property rights.
The letter says the US Trade Representative (USTR) has carefully documented problems, but has taken no action to redress or eliminate them.
Each year the report comments on a variety of tariff and non-tariff barriers used by other countries to protect their markets. The countries in which the US exports are affected by trade barriers include China, India, Bangladesh, Pakistan, South Korea, and Taiwan.
After the loss of almost three million manufacturing jobs since January 2001 and the growing problem of outsourcing the services sector, it is time to stop taking inventory and to start producing results for American workers, farmers and businesses," the letter said.
In the three years that the Bush administration has been in office, the USTR has brought an average of fewer than three cases per year to the WTO while the Clinton administration brought approximately 10 cases per year, it added.
The congressional leaders said they plan to introduce legislation to revive a key tool of the US law used in the past that would require the USTR to "prioritise" dealing with overseas trade barriers.