How did trade quotas and tariffs affect the textile and clothing industries after World War II?

Following World War II, the global approach to trade in textiles and clothing—as with other merchandise—shifted toward liberalization, though the transition was complex. Initially, the General Agreement on Tariffs and Trade (GATT), established in 1947, sought to reduce tariffs and eliminate discriminatory trade practices among member nations.12

While Western European countries began gradually dismantling quantitative import quotas after the war, the United States continued to utilize them more frequently. A significant limitation of the early GATT framework was that it focused primarily on general merchandise trade, often excluding specific sectors such as textiles and agriculture from its core liberalization efforts.31

The landscape evolved through various negotiating rounds, such as the Kennedy and Tokyo rounds, which aimed to lower trade barriers and address nontariff issues like subsidies. It was not until the Uruguay Round (1986–1994) and the subsequent establishment of the World Trade Organization in 1995 that a comprehensive framework was created to encompass all goods, including those previously excluded, thereby integrating textiles more fully into the global rules-based trading system.12