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Buhler Quality Yarns Corporation
Jefferson, Georgia 30549
August 26, 2005
The Honorable Clay Shaw
Chairman
Subcommittee on Trade
Committee on Ways and
Means
U.S. House of
Representatives
1104 Longworth House
Office Building
Washington, DC 20515
Dear Chairman Shaw:
I am
writing in response to the Subcommittee’s request for written comments for the
record related to duty suspension proposals. Buhler Quality Yarns Corporation
is a Georgia-based, U.S. spinner of high quality, combed and ring spun, SUPIMAÒcotton yarns; the largest such spinner in the U.S. I
write in support of H.R. 1945, a bill introduced by Representatives Simmons and
Etheridge to provide temporary duty relief for very high end, shirting cotton
fabrics for men’s shirt manufacturers and to strengthen the industry.
As a result of our trade agreements beginning with NAFTA, a
tremendous disadvantage has been placed on U.S. manufacturers of high quality
cotton men’s and boys’ shirts. While foreign makers of such shirts from many
countries can import finished shirts into this country duty-free using shirting
fabrics from any source, U.S. manufacturers continue to pay duties on fabric
that the U.S. Congress and government have repeatedly found is no longer made
in the U.S. As a result of this unintended duty inversion, the U.S. shirt
manufacturing industry has suffered tremendously. The companies that remain in
the U.S. produce world-renowned quality products and employ a highly skilled
workforce but face duties on fabrics they rely upon while many of their foreign
competitors are allowed preferential duty treatment. H.R. 1945 would help
level the playing field, providing tariff relief and helping strengthen U.S.
manufacturers, cotton growers and domestic spinners such as Buhler Quality
Yarns, which are exporting their domestic made pima yarns for fabric making.
Those fabrics are then imported by the mentioned shirting manufacturers with
duty levied upon entry into the US, which discriminates not only those companies
importing such fabrics, but also Buhler Quality Yarns as the manufacturer of
the yarns used in such fabric.
Beginning
with NAFTA, and repeated in the Caribbean Basin Initiative, the Andean Trade
Preference Act, the African Growth and Opportunity Act, and most recently in
the
DR-CAFTA
agreement, Congress has extended generous trade preferences to foreign
manufacturers in these countries to import finished shirts duty-free into the
United States with fabric sourced from non-agreement countries. In each case,
Congress has found that this fabric, high quality cotton shirting fabric, is
not manufactured in the U.S. or in any of the countries under the above
agreements. The International Trade Commission and the Department of Commerce
has also repeatedly found that this fabric is not available in commercially
available quantities in the United States in administrative findings on the
fabric when used to produce other apparel items. Buhler Quality Yarns makes
the high-end pima cotton yarn for shirting fabric, and we do not know of any
production in commercially available quantities of such high end, cotton
shirting fabric in the U.S.
H.R. 1945
provides duty relief to a narrow class of high-end cotton fabric, some of which
would need to contain U.S. cotton content, imported into the U.S. for shirt
making, and would also re-liquidate about one third of the duties U.S.
manufactures have paid since NAFTA to be used to create a program that would
strengthen the U.S. industry, including the manufacturers, spinners of high end
yarn, and U.S. long staple (SUPIMA)
cotton growers. As the largest U.S. spinner of these yarns, we would expect
this legislation would increase the demand for yarn with U.S. pima cotton
content. We believe the duty re-liquidation aspect of the bill is entirely
appropriate to correct a policy that should never have occurred. As mentioned
above, CAFTA extended the same duty-free treatment to foreign manufacturers to
bring finished shirts into the U.S. In fact, CAFTA went a step further,
granting foreign manufacturers duty rebates for shirts entering the U.S. since
January 1, 2004. If the United States is going to provide duty refunds for
foreign manufacturers, it only makes sense to return duties from U.S.
manufacturers that we believe should never have been collected.
H.R. 1945
will help preserve hundreds of domestic skilled jobs manufacturing dress shirts
in Alabama, Pennsylvania, North Carolina, New Jersey, Tennessee and Louisiana,
as well as promote employment for yarn spinners in Georgia and pima cotton
growers in Texas, Arizona, New Mexico and California.
I urge the
Subcommittee and the full Committee on Ways and Means to include H.R. 1945 in
any miscellaneous trade and tariff and duty suspension legislation that the
Committee considers. Thank you for the opportunity to comment on this matter
so important to the 135 employees of Buhler Quality Yarns Corporation.
W.
Bieri
President & CEO
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