Since he signed on as America’s key ally in the war against terrorism, Pakistani President Pervez Musharraf has asked only one favour: suspension of U.S. tariffs and quotas on Pakistani textiles. Last month he got his answer: no.
Instead, the administration consented to a bureaucratic sleight of hand that would let Pakistan borrow unused quotas of American imports such as wool gloves. The offer was worth $140 million, one-tenth of the value of Musharraf’s initial request. Others, however, have been more generous.
Instead of helping Pakistan recover, analysts say, the Bush Administration kow-towed to the U.S. textile lobby, which supports protectionist tariffs and quotas. During the last six months, the industry has lobbied against tariff-lowering requests from Turkey, Uzbekistan and Tajikistan all key allies in the war on terrorism.
In other words, observers note, the protectionist lobby of a dying industry has become the opponent of American foreign policy. However, like the U.S. steel industry, domestic textiles are declining 124 plants closed or made extensive layoffs last year.
Source: Franklin Foer, Fabric Softener, New Republic, March 4 and 11, 2002.
For more on Tariffs and Other Trade Barriers http://www.ncpa.org/iss/tra
RSA Comment:
The strangest aspect of protectionism is that it involves the imposition of higher costs on consumers by their own governments. And those who suffer are usually the poorest members of society, especially when clothing and footwear are involved. The supposed protection of jobs in the tariff-imposing countries is illusionary in that what is spent on higher-cost clothing would have been spent on other consumer goods, creating jobs elsewhere in the economy. Tariff protection is therefore a lose/lose political mechanism.
Eustace Davie, Director, FMF.
FMF Policy Bulletin\12 March 2002
