US textile firms fear Bush aid package for Turkey

Once you start down that path it’s going to awfully tough to turn down the next country. Our industry, frankly, can’t afford to be used as a bargaining chip. We’ve made that very clear to our friends in Congress and to the administration," DuPree said.
The textile industry has lost about 177,000 jobs since 1997, or about 30 percent of its employment, despite an extensive network of quotas and tariffs to limit imports.
The industry blames the job losses on a surge of cheap textiles from Asia, which they say have been aided by weak currencies compared to the U.S. dollar.
Last year, the Bush administration scaled back an proposed package of more than $1 billion in textile trade benefits for Pakistan, another key ally in the war on terrorism, to just $142 million after domestic companies protested.
Now, with a possible war in Iraq looming, the industry fears the Bush administration has promised Turkey more access to the U.S. textile market as part of a deal to allow the United States to deploy its troops in the country.
The United States has already agreed to provide Ankara with $6 billion in grants and $10 billion in loan guarantees to shore up the Turkish economy, according to U.S. officials.
The U.S. Trade Representative’s Office, the Commerce Department and the White House did not return phone calls asking for comment on the textile industry’s worries.
DuPree said it was hard to know for certain what the administration was considering since the negotiations with Turkey have been going on "behind closed doors."
But the industry has heard the White House also was looking at waiving certain "Buy America" provisions so the U.S. military could purchase textile products from Turkey, he said.
Ed Gresser, a trade policy analyst at the Progressive Policy Institute, said it made sense for the administration to look at textile trade benefits as part of an aid package for Turkey.
What countries such as Turkey need is "something that can get young people into jobs and believing they have a future," Gresser said.
The House of Representatives passed legislation last year to provide duty-free access for certain Turkish goods manufactured in so-called "Qualified Industrial Zones."
That legislation, which did not contain a textile component, died in the Senate.
Congress is expected to take the measure up again this year. A spokeswoman for the House Ways and Means Committee said it was uncertain whether the reintroduced bill would contain textile provisions for Turkey.