Michael Froman Assures Industry on TPP

WASHINGTON — U.S. Trade Representative Michael Froman, touting a resurgence in U.S. textile manufacturing in a speech on Thursday, pledged to a conference of U.S. textile producers that there would be “no surprises” in an Asia-Pacific trade deal the U.S. is negotiating. Froman praised the members of the National Council of Textile Organizations, attending their annual confab here, for forging a close and “unprecedented” partnership with the Obama administration, which has said it is in the final stages of completing negotiations on the Trans-Pacific Partnership agreement between the U.S. and 11 other countries. Froman’s pledge reassured textile executives, who have been pressing the U.S. not to water down its proposal for a “yarn-forward” rule of origin that requires apparel be made of fabric and yarns supplied by the U.S. or other TPP partner countries to qualify for duty-free benefits when shipped back to the U.S. But textile producers are concerned that if there are any changes to provisions that give Vietnam, a TPP partner country and the second-largest apparel supplier to the U.S., more duty-free access to the American market in the final stage of negotiations, it could undermine their business in the Western Hemisphere that has strengthened in recent years. This could

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