Beyond the phaseout of quotas in the textile and clothing trade: WTO-plus rules and the case of US safeguards against Chinese exports in 2003

International trade in textiles and clothing has been subject to strong protectionism for decades. Although the WTO Agreement on Textiles and Clothing has set procedures to phase out the quota system, this paper questions how far the regime will actually be liberalized. It highlights the significant differences between the China-specific safeguard provisions in China’s WTO accession protocol and the general WTO Agreement on Safeguards. It also examines the recent case of a US safeguard application against China’s textile and clothing products and analyses the potential impact of this case on both countries and the global economy. The analysis suggests that prospects for China’s textile and clothing exports after WTO accession may not be as optimistic as is generally assumed.