Word: footwear
(lookup in dictionary)
(lookup stats)
Dates: all
Sort By: most recent first
(reverse)
Many factors combined to produce that surge. The figures on the trade deficit seemed to cry for action. Last spring the International Trade Commission found that the shoe industry was being crippled by competition from low-priced imports and recommended that Reagan impose a strict quota on foreign footwear. But in August the President refused, warning of a trade war and renewed inflation if he acquiesced. His action convinced many on Capitol Hill that the Administration would not help even the most severely affected industries unless Congress forced his hand...
Some high-price, high-quality American shoes have carved out foreign markets. In Italy, Timberland shoes (retail price in Rome: $100 a pair) are such a fad that young thugs have taken to attacking people and stripping them of the American-made footwear. Yet the Timberland factory in Newmarket, N.H., failed to meet its production target last year because it could not pay its workers high enough wages...
According to the ITC, prices of imported footwear could rise by some 15% in the U.S. in the first year alone. To employ 22,000 new shoeworkers at an average salary of $14,000 would cost the U.S. $26,300 per job. Shoe quotas would hurt developing countries, which are struggling to earn foreign exchange to service their U.S. debts. Washington would be in the awkward position of demanding that Brazil meet its debt obligations while depriving it of the means...
...industry might amount to little more than a stay of execution. After five years of protection, there is no reason to believe that the American shoemakers would be any more able to fend off foreign competition. Says U.S. Trade Representative Clayton Yeutter: "That was the major strike that the footwear industry had against it. If the industry could have demonstrated that it was likely to be price competitive in the future, we may have had a different position...
...years that followed, my dad and I witnessed the arrival of big waffles, little waffles, air-filled soles, shoes with extra arch support, shoes with no support whatsoever, and every other conceivable form of footwear...