The TPP, What Does It Mean for Your Textile or Apparel Business?

On Thursday, November 5th, the Office of the United States Trade Representative ("USTR") published the text of the Trans-Pacific Partner Ship ("TPP") free trade agreement. This text is still subject to review and correction but only of a technical nature (I spotted a couple of typos). The final text can be expected to not deviate in any substantial way.

I have annotated the parts most relevant to textile and apparel interests and posted them on the Agathon Associates website at http://agathonassociates.com/textile-pri/tpp/index.htm

Among the documents on the Agathon Associates site are --

1. Full text of Chapter 4 - Textiles and Apparel:

• as a PDF published by USTR,
• as an individual HTML webpage for each Article, with links in the Articles to related concepts, and
• accompanied by a table of contents for easy of locating relevant Articles.

2. Market Access (U.S. Tariff Phase Out Schedule:

• as an extremely difficult to read PDF published by USTR,
• as an easy to navigate spreadsheet with all tariff lines likely to be of interest to the textile and apparel industries, and
• as a formatted report showing the U.S. tariff phase out schedule for Vietnam, arranged by Multifiber Arrangement ("MFA") category and tariff classification number, and with the USTR codes for the phase out stages decoded.

NOTE, Agathon Associates has the entire U.S. Tariff Phase Out Schedule in an Access database and can quickly produce customized reports for clients.

3. Short Supply List:

• the PDF published by USTR,
• the entire textile and apparel short supply list conveniently formatted as an HTML webpage,
• for wool products on the short supply list, a webpage of just the wool products, along with an easy to read summary of all the short supply provisions relating to wool, and
• for knit products on the short supply list, a webpage of just the knit provisions in short supply.

4. Annex A - Textile and Apparel Specific Rules of Origin:

• the PDF published by USTR,
• the rules of origin rendered in HTML as an easy to read webpage complete with explanations of meanings of the tariff classification numbers so it is no longer necessary to read the rules in conjunction with the bulky and cumbersome Harmonized Tariff Schedule of the United States ("HTSUS"),
• Plain English explanation of every rule and every deviation from the rules, and
• Comments relating to differences between TPP and other recent U.S. trade agreements.

5. Earned Import Credit Program:

• as PDF published by USTR and
• formatted for the internet.

This information is available to clients of Agathon Associates, subscribers to Agathon Associates' Trade Advisor Service, and students in David Trumbull's TMD 433 course at the University of Rhode Island. You will need to enter your username and password. If you do not know your username and password email David Trumbull at david@agathonassociates.com.