Now, I realize that we all benefit from inexpensive clothing and shoes, but are we receiving this benefit to the detriment of the workers in those countries?
Doesn't the foreign currency that comes to these countries indirectly support the governments and slow the progress towards democracy?

Eh? This is new?

This is having complicated consequences for textile producers both in Canada and in the developing world.

The End of Textile Quotas Will Redistribute Pain and Gain

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The commitment to lifting textile quotas dates to 1994, with the successful close of the 'Uruguay Round' talks that created the WTO. On January 1, 2005, the United States, Europe, and other rich economies will abolish their quotas systems. The event is still awaited with enthusiasm in China and India – but in many other countries it arouses more apprehension than hope, as the livelihoods of over ten million workers across the developing world could be affected.

Unique in manufacturing trade policy, the quotas set limits on the number of clothes developing countries can send the US. Filipinos, for example, can sell Americans all the bicycles, yo-yos, and computer chips they can make. But they can sell no more than 4,198,176 cotton sweaters to the United States this year. Fifty-four other countries face similar limits.

Economists have long derided this approach to trade, and for good reason. For Americans, the quotas are drags on the standard of living. A recent analysis by the International Trade Commission suggests the quotas may raise clothing prices by 25 percent across the board, meaning Americans pay $50 to $60 billion more for clothes than they should.

Developing-country governments, meanwhile, considered the quotas an obnoxious barrier to growth and job creation. The reasons are obvious. Every day, U.S. ports take in a million sweaters, six million pairs of socks, 1.3 million brassieres, and much more. In 1994, Asian, Latin American, African, and Middle East governments alike assumed that ending the quotas would mean more American imports, and that more American imports would mean more jobs.

In 2004 it doesn't seem that simple. The quotas have certainly limited imports. But they have done so mainly for the countries that can make the most clothes – China in particular, and to a lesser extent India and other large Asian countries. These limits seem in turn to have created a 'space' of demand which factories in Nepal or Haiti could fill. So when the quotas vanish this January, some countries fear China and India will recapture the space left to others and do it so well as to squeeze them out completely.

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