Dear readers

After a week-long Spring Festival holiday， we are now back to office with a new start of life and work in the Chinese New Year that begins on January 28th， and that sees Springtime set in on February 3rd， signifying a resurgence of dormant creatures that survive the biting-cold wintertime on a recycling run of life revival predestined by Laws of Nature.

Hopefully， the natural forces can work all right on global economy that has been dormant too long and resuscitates as the Spring breezes in while the cold winter fades out. But who knows it？

For only half a month since President Donald Trump was sworn in， he came out with a cascade of executive orders that splashed the world， giving rise to a tsunami of shocking waves and waves of metropolitan protests in the United States and widely-spreading displeasure and ire for the travel bans that fanned more street protests.

Exiting Trans-Pacific Partnership （TPP） bears the brunt of the show series. On Feb. 24， President Donald Trump signed document to drop out of this 12-nation economic bloc， which he was vocally opposed to during his presidential campaign， arguing that it was a disaster because the deal would strike more Americans jobless. The same apprehensions were also felt and expressed by the textile industry in the United States. On January 20，2016， the National Council of Textile organizations （NCTO）， the largest trade association representing the interests of textile manufacturers from farm to fashion in the United States， voted to formally support TPP free trade agreement after an exhaustive analysis to determine that the NCTOs principle objectives were met as part of the finalized terms that include a strong yarn-forward rule of origin for the vast majority of textile and apparel products， reasonable and multi-year tariff phase-outs for sensitive products， terms that provided the stability of the Western Hemisphere textile and apparel production chain.

Sarcastically， with the careful study and exhaustive analysis of the TPP impact on U.S. textile industry， which was endorsed by NCTO with a determination to support the trade deal one year ago， the new president of the United States signed to withdraw TPP one year later， leaving the textile trade pattern more structurally complicated， adding much uncertainty to the textile investment and trade flows in the years to come. This trans-pacific free trade agreement covers 12 countries， out of which there are already six countries having FTAs with the United States， namely， Canada， Mexico， Peru， Chile， Australia and Singapore that account for 52 percent， totaling 12.459 billion dollars， of the U.S. textile and apparel export globally in 2015. The new 5 FTA partners （Brunei， Japan， Malaysia， New Zealand， and Vietnam） under TPP added up to less than or approximately $1 billion worth of textile and apparel exports from the United States in the same year， while China alone imported over $1.1 billion dollars of American textile products， responsible for over 4 percent of U.S. textile export. It is very clear that the six existing FTA partners （e.g. Canada and Mexico of overwhelming importance for U.S. textile exports） have been and will continue to be preponderant clients for U.S. textile goods to the neglect of 5 new ones that take up poorly 0.4 percent market share. In this context， exiting TPP might be a right option for Trumps Administration to open a new business avenue for the domestic textile manufacturing sector that should strengthen commercial ties with China， a sizable market for U.S. textile goods.