NEW YORK — The U.S. and China are “very close” to reaching an agreement on regulating surging imports of apparel and textiles, a top U.S. trade official said Thursday.
The remarks of David Spooner, special textile negotiator for U.S. Trade Representative Rob Portman, were made during a presentation at the WWD/DNR CEO Summit here. They came a day after the wrap-up of the latest round of negotiations with Chinese trade officials in Washington.
Spooner expressed confidence that the long-running bargaining would soon result in an accord.
“Sometimes it’s difficult to put the ball over the goal line, but I’d say we’re very close,” Spooner said.
The two sides appear to have resolved the major sticking points, including how many products would be included in the agreement, how much those products would be allowed to increase and when an accord would end.
Negotiators were said to be considering a deal that would run through 2008 and cover 32 to 34 product categories, with a wide range of growth rates for individual products each year.
Spooner said the U.S. was obligated to seek safeguards when petitioned by the industry, as China had agreed to them as part of its entry agreement with the World Trade Organization in 2001.
He acknowledged that the three days of talks this week had taken a toll, joking that the Chinese kept negotiations going through the night as part of an aggressive bargaining strategy.