Senate Limits Debate on New Import Curbs

The Senate shrugged off concern about reverting to trade protectionism today and decided to force a vote on imposing new curbs on textile, apparel and non-rubber footwear imports.

“This is about the survival of the textile industry,” the sponsor, Sen. Ernest F. Hollings (D-S.C.) told the Senate before it voted 68 to 29 to limit debate on the bill to 30 hours and thus avert any filibuster.

The action represented a step forward for the textile, apparel and shoe industries. But prospects for the House-passed bill remain clouded with a month to go before Congress adjourns to campaign full time.

Had the Senate not acted to invoke cloture, or limit debate, free-trade forces seeking to prevent a vote on the bill itself almost certainly would have staged a filibuster. Preventing that required three-fifths support.

The bill would freeze this year’s textile and apparel imports at 1987 levels and permit growth of 1% annually in the years ahead. It would bar increases in the level of non-rubber footwear imports.

Earlier Version Vetoed

The President would be authorized to negotiate tariff cuts to compensate countries hurt by the tightened restrictions.

President Reagan vetoed an earlier version of the legislation in 1985 to the dismay of manufacturers and a number of labor unions. He called the measure protectionism that would raise prices, narrow consumer choices and actually cost more jobs than it would save in the textile, apparel and shoe industries.

The industries were rocked by a wave of imports in the early 1980s and have been pushing ever since for congressional restrictions.

Critics have been complaining, however, that the textile industry’s distress is a thing of the past and that, in large measure thanks to competition from Asian manufacturers, American companies are more productive and competitive than ever before.

Sen. Bob Packwood (R-Ore.) warned against a reversion to trade protectionism.

“Usually who gets hurt is the poor,” Packwood said.