New York, January 3-- A U.S. judge temporarily blocked the Commerce Department from imposing emergency restrictions on imports from China, a move that backs clothing retailers and opposes the wishes of textile producers.
The temporary injunction -- issued on Thursday by Judge Richard Goldberg of the U.S. Court of International Justice in New York -- responded to a lawsuit brought by the U.S. Association of Importers of Textiles and Apparels, which represents leading clothing retailers such as J.C. Penney Co. Inc.
The trade group sued to stop the Commerce Department from slapping emergency quotas on billions of dollars of trousers, underwear and other clothing from China next year.
In the decision, Goldberg found that the trade group "has suffered, and will continue to suffer, irreparable injury" if the quotas are put in place.
He also said the retailers "raised sufficiently serious and difficult questions regarding the propriety" of the government's proposed actions, according to the decision.
The retailers are opposed by U.S. textile producers, who have filed a dozen petitions with the Bush administration asking for import curbs. The producers fear China will flood the U.S. market with cheap clothing when a decades-old quota system on imports expires on Jan. 1 as the result of a 1994 world trade deal.
U.S. retailers have been looking forward to the end of the quota system and have accused the government of caving in to pressure from domestic textile producers by agreeing to consider petitions based on merely the threat of a surge in imports.
