Beijing, September 14-- A top U.S. commerce official said he told China to expect American textile makers to seek new limits on Chinese imports as global quotas on textiles are set to expire on Jan. 1, and U.S. firms are already bracing for a flood of cheaply made Chinese textiles, Grant Aldonas, U.S. undersecretary of commerce for trade said Tuesday.
Speaking at a news conference following his meetings with Chinese trade officials, Aldonas said he sought to make clear to Beijing that Washington wouldn't tolerate market disruptions after Jan. 1, such as a surge in textile imports from China or a sudden expansion of manufacturing capacity.
As such, U.S. textile makers already plan to seek limits based on the threat of market disruptions, he said.
"We made it clear what we saw as the potential for the industry filing cases as early as next week in terms of the safeguards action," Aldonas said.
China is "taking it very seriously," he added. "That's one of the reasons I wanted to be very direct and very frank with them about how we saw things unfolding. I don't want any surprises here."
On the issue of fighting piracy and protecting intellectual property rights, Aldonas said he was encouraged by China's newly announced yearlong crackdown on violations.
But, "what we really have to see at the end of the day is that the sales of legitimate goods are going up and the sales of pirated goods are going down," he said.
Piracy is rampant in China, in everything from clothing to pharmaceuticals to construction materials. Aldonas said U.S. firms were especially concerned that pirated goods from China were finding their way to the world market.
American manufacturers who accompanied Aldonas to Beijing also called on China to eliminate what they see are trade-distorting subsidies and allow the Chinese currency to trade freely.
China's currency, the yuan, is fixed at 8.28 to the U.S. dollar, which many U.S. manufacturers say makes Chinese products unfairly cheap.
A freely traded market-based currency is needed for "a level playing field with China when it comes to trade," said William Walter, chief executive officer of FMC Corp., a Philadelphia-based chemical company.
Walter said Chinese officials offered assurances that they plan to relax their tight hold on the currency eventually, "although we didn't get any commitments with respect to time."
