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Statement About Textile Imports From Japan

March 11, 1971

FOR 2 years, this Administration has attempted to negotiate a voluntary agreement with the Government of Japan curtailing the excessive wool and manmade fiber textile imports from Japan. The United States has sought to be as flexible as possible concerning the details of an agreement, while consistently adhering to certain basic principles which we consider essential to any agreement designed to curb these excessive imports. These principles are reflected in the following terms which have been presented to the Japanese Ambassador by the U.S. negotiator in meetings through January of this year:

--A limited number of categories of particularly sensitive products, covering about cue-half of those imports, would be assigned specific import ceilings. The ceilings would be based upon imports from Japan in 1969 plus a reasonable growth factor. Shifting of imports among these categories would be permitted so as to reflect changing conditions in the U.S. market, subject to limitations to avoid excessive concentration in any of these sensitive categories.

--If imports from Japan of any other category exceed the 1970 import level plus a more liberal growth factor, the United States could request consultation with Japan and impose specific limitations if a mutually satisfactory solution was not reached.

On Monday, following discussions between its Washington representative and the chairman of the House Ways and Means Committee, the Japan Textile Federation announced that the Japanese textile industry is undertaking a unilateral program to limit future exports of textile products to the United States. At the same time, the Government of Japan issued a public statement endorsing this unorthodox action by a private Japanese group and terminating its negotiations with the United States Government. On its face, this unilateral program falls short of the terms essential to the United States in the following significant respects:

--Only one overall ceiling for all cotton, wool, and manmade fiber fabric and apparel textiles is provided, with only a general undertaking by the Japanese industry "to prevent undue distortions of the present pattern of trade." This allows concentration on specific categories, which could result in these categories growing many times faster than the overall limits.

--The overall ceiling would be based on imports from Japan in the year ending March 31, 1971, plus a growth factor. During the a years that we have been negotiating with the Government of Japan, imports of manmade fiber textile products have greatly increased, and in January 1971 they entered this country at a record-breaking level. Moreover, the program magnifies the potential growth of the sensitive categories by including in the base exports of cotton products which are already limited by agreement and which have been declining.

The deficiencies in the Japanese industry program make it clear that it will not result in an acceptable solution. It is well known that I would prefer a negotiated agreement to solve this problem. The maneuver of the Japanese industry, now apparently ratified by the Government of Japan, has effectively precluded further meaningful government to government negotiations, the resumption of which this country would welcome.

Consequently, I will strongly support the textile quota provisions of the legislation now pending before the Congress, H.R. 20, a bill passed by the House of Representatives last year and reintroduced this year by Chairman Mills and Congressman Byrnes of the Ways and Means Committee.

At the same time I am directing the Secretary of Commerce to monitor imports of wool and manmade fiber textile products from Japan on a monthly basis. I am instructing that this monitoring begin immediately, with the results, including an analysis of any differences from what would have been the results under the terms we presented, to be made available to the entire Congress.

Under the circumstances and in order to provide the relief necessary for United States textile workers and businesses this Government must now give the fullest consideration to the other alternative solutions to the textile problem.

Note: On the same day, the White House released the transcript of a news briefing on textile imports by Representative John W. Byrnes of Wisconsin and Peter M. Flanigan, Assistant to the President.

Richard Nixon, Statement About Textile Imports From Japan Online by Gerhard Peters and John T. Woolley, The American Presidency Project https://www.presidency.ucsb.edu/node/254516

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