The chief executive of the National Council of Textile Organizations (NCTO) has formally asked the Office of the United States Trade Representative (USTR) to reinforce its backing of U.S. textile manufacturing, hometextilestoday.com reported.

The appeal lands inside the trade-policy machinery governing apparel sourcing into the U.S. market and signals continued pressure from the domestic manufacturing lobby for tighter enforcement of Western Hemisphere preference programs.

What NCTO wants from USTR

NCTO represents U.S. producers across the upstream supply chain — fiber, yarn, fabric, dyeing, and finishing. Its recurring trade-policy asks to USTR include:

• Strict enforcement of the yarn-forward rule of origin under the United States-Mexico-Canada Agreement (USMCA)
• Tighter anti-transshipment measures targeting apparel routed through third countries to circumvent duties
• Preservation of the Berry Amendment, which restricts U.S. military textile purchases to domestic sources
• Maintenance of knit fabric provisions under the Dominican Republic-Central America Free Trade Agreement (CAFTA-DR)

The push lands as USTR reviews enforcement records across multiple preference programs and weighs how aggressively to police origin-of-goods documentation at the port level.

Why the call matters for sourcing

USTR sets and enforces the policy that determines whether an apparel import qualifies for duty-free entry into the U.S. market. The yarn-forward rule — the central pillar of USMCA's textile chapter — requires that yarn-spinning, fabric-forming, and finishing all occur within the bloc for finished garments to receive preferential tariffs.

Any softening of that standard would redirect sourcing volume from North American yarn and fabric suppliers toward lower-cost Asian producers operating outside the agreement's framework. Brand sourcing teams have spent two decades restructuring vendor books around Western Hemisphere suppliers precisely because of the duty differential that the yarn-forward rule preserves. Reversing course would force an immediate reassessment of nearshoring commitments and Mexico-Central America capacity investments.

Where U.S. textile capacity sits

The domestic textile base concentrates in the Southeast — North Carolina, South Carolina, and Georgia — and operates at the upstream tiers: spinning, weaving, knitting, dyeing, and finishing. NCTO's request places USTR in the position of weighing that capacity against broader trade-liberalization priorities across multiple negotiations and reviews.

The association has long framed USTR engagement as the principal lever for protecting employment in those upstream tiers, where automated spinning and weaving operations remain capital-intensive and exposed to import competition from Asia.

The sourcing decision this forces

For sourcing executives at U.S. apparel brands and retailers, the USTR response will determine whether Western Hemisphere yarn and fabric suppliers retain their cost edge under preference programs — or face renewed price competition from imports routed through countries outside the yarn-forward framework.

Procurement teams should track USTR's enforcement directives and any bilateral negotiations that could relax the rule. A looser origin regime would compress margins for regional mills already operating on thin spreads, while opening the door for finished-goods importers to substitute Asian inputs without losing duty preference.