Senate Approves Import Curbs; Veto Threatened

The Senate approved new curbs on textile, clothing and shoe imports Friday, defying the threat of a presidential veto weeks before the November elections.

“We ought to pass this now and not put it off and deprive American workers of jobs they could have,” Sen. Strom Thurmond (R-S.C.) said before the Senate approved the measure, 57 to 32.

The bill, aimed at protecting American manufacturers from foreign competition, would freeze this year’s imports of textiles, apparel and non-rubber footwear at 1987 levels and limit their growth to 1% annually thereafter. It also would bar foreign manufacturers of non-rubber footwear from increasing their share of the American market beyond existing levels.

11 Did Not Vote

Senate supporters of the textile industry and their opponents came away from the roll call frustrated. With 11 lawmakers not voting, sponsors fell short of a veto-proof margin and critics lacked the 34 votes needed to assure that a veto would be sustained.

U.S. Trade Representative Clayton K. Yeutter issued a statement calling the action regrettable.

White House spokesman Marlin Fitzwater noted that President Reagan had vetoed a 1985 textile protection bill and said the President “will veto the 1988 version if it reaches his desk.”

‘Protectionism at Its Worst’

“The bill the Senate passed today is protectionism at its worst,” he said. “It would bring retaliation against U.S. exports, harm U.S. international competitiveness and cost American jobs. That is a disastrous prescription for America’s economic future.”

The bill’s sponsor, Sen. Ernest F. Hollings (D-S.C.) said he was not trying to avoid the label “protectionist.”

“Yes, I’m a protectionist,” he said. “Man, foreign importers are trading our shirts off of us. We’re going broke. We need protection.”

Sponsors of the bill face another obstacle. Opponents are seeking to delay until next week sending the bill to the House, which passed a similar version last September but now must decide whether to go along with the Senate changes.

Supporters say the bill would save American jobs that would be lost to overseas competition without some protection for hard-pressed U.S. companies. Critics say textile companies are thriving, partly because of import restraints already in place and because of modernization that followed a surge in imports in the early 1980s.

Additional protection would merely dull U.S. industry’s competitive edge, the critics say.

The U.S. textile and apparel industries were battered in the early 1980s by a wave of imports and underwent a large-scale modernization that caused layoffs. About 300,000 textile jobs and 70,000 in the apparel sector have been lost since the start of the decade.

Industries concede that automation as much as foreign competition claimed a large number of textile jobs but note that apparel manufacturing remains heavily labor intensive, giving low-wage countries an edge in price competition.