Latin America's textile industries are in trouble. They cannot compete with cheaper imports from China.
Textile industries are labor-intensive. They do much to create the infrastructure and work ethic needed for other manufacturing industries to develop. For this reason they are usually the crucial first stage in a nation's industrialization. The demise of Latin America's textile industries is especially tragic since it will not only cripple further industrial progress; it could also trigger social crises, given the serious unemployment and resultant crime problems in the area -- problems I have been made only too aware of on recent visits to Peru and Ecuador.
In short, these nations should be allowed to impose whatever trade barriers are needed to keep those Chinese textiles out. But the free-trade experts, in the International Monetary Fund, World Bank and elsewhere, say no. No free trade, no loans to help cope with economic crises. But if the crises are the result of free trade preventing industrial progress? For the Latin Americans it is an ugly Catch 22 situation.