Kim Glass, President and CEO, The National Council of Textile Organizations (NCTO) has emphasized on the importance of investing onshoring and nearshoring.

Glas said, years of offshoring production in a race to the bottom –exacerbated by predatory trade practices that have undermined many manufacturing industries--has led to a tipping point.

China’s virtually unlimited and unrealistic pricing power coupled with its subsidies and lack of enforceable environmental standards strips benefits and undermines policy objectives, and leaves the US industry in an untenable situation of overreliance on a foreign supply chain for critical products and raw materials. This needs to change, he added.

China needs to be made accountable for predatory trade practices that have offshored our industries and our jobs. The industry needs to onshore and nearshore more textile and apparel production chains out of Asia to the US and also to Western Hemisphere trade partners. This has a multitude of benefits to ensure more reliability in production and also has remarkable job benefits to US manufacturers and its allied trading partners who adhere to higher labor and environmental standards. Further, it will help address the migration crisis and grow better paying jobs.