In Chapter Eight of Travels of a T-Shirt, Pietra Rivoli examines the effects of the t-shirt trade policy in the United States. She discovers that not only were the trade barriers not helpful to U.S. textile laborers, they actually aided competing countries in the apparel market. In fact, the trade barriers have made it more difficult for U.S. apparel producers to compete in the market. Acts like the MFA and its predecessors also carried an economic cost to the United States on the scale of “Very Big Numbers” (p. 143). Rivoli also discusses some of the more perverse effects of American trade laws: globe-trotting, label cheating, and making the wrong people wealthy. She also discovers one positive effect of the U.S. trade policies. In the end, the trade barriers did not fulfill their main purpose: saving American textile jobs.
The trade regime in Washington saved only the jobs of bureaucrats and lobbyists in Washington (pp. 140 & 148). The laws did nothing for the actual textile laborers. Jobs in the apparel market are victims of modern technology, rather than Chinese competition (p. 141). How can we get the public to understand this? Obviously, lobbyists and bureaucrats are still getting paid because production of goods is being kept in the U.S. by the regimes. I feel like the textile laborers are being swindled by Washington lobbyists because trade regimes are not in the workers’ best interests. Also, what happens to the workers who lose their jobs to machines? What can the government do for these people? I believe the “Very Big Numbers” can make a point for me here. “The apparel quotas granted to China during that year (2004) represented a gift of approximately $905 million to the Chinese government” (p. 147). It seems like we should open our borders to free trade in textiles and use the $905 million to re-educate and train our textile workforce for other jobs. The “gift” to China in the form of quotas is also an example of making the wrong people wealthy. The trade regime was built to maintain the wealth of U.S. textiles, but, clearly, the regime is benefiting other countries to a greater extent.
In Chapter Nine, the author carries the reader through the final years leading to the end of the MFA in 2005. She begins with an astonishing re-telling of the negotiations that took place in the textile market in the days following the September 11, 2001 attacks on the World Trade Center. Rivoli then shifts her attention to the last remaining “dinosaurs” in the textile lobbies, and their rapid disappearance from Washington (p. 161-164). Finally, she discusses the last hoorah for the U.S. textile trade regime which involved some rather surprising supporters.
First of all, I was completely unaware of the importance of textile trade in the 9/11 alliance deals. In fact, I was very put-off when I learned that our President was talking t-shirt sales with the Pakistanis while we were bombing Afghanistan. Obviously, the textile and apparel markets are much more valuable than I thought. I also found this quote regarding President George W. Bust interesting: “In staring down the U.S. textile industry, he blinked” (p. 161). I have a hard time understanding why a President would choose votes over an effective presidency. The textile industries have essentially made our past presidents lame ducks in regards to free textile trade, but they always secure the office of President. After Rivoli makes a brief mention of Senators Thurmond, Helms, and Hollings and the failing alphabet armies, she discusses the last major battle of the textile industry before 2005. With the MFA coming to a close, the developing countries that previously supported free-trade were having second thoughts. Soon, they were fighting on Auggie Tantillo’s side. This makes perfect sense when we consider the benefits small countries received from the MFA. Developing countries were able to get a foot on the economic ladder by trading their quotas and offering labor to big countries like China. Job loss as a result of the fall of the MFA would be far more severe in developing countries than it would be in the U.S. (p. 167). What would happen to all of those people? Not only would their ensuing poverty be even more unbearable, but the devil loves idle hands. What kind of threat could they pose to the developed world, especially to the countries that were responsible for their downfall (U.S. and China)? I think this is a very real problem.
