Potential Impact of the Trans-Atlantic Trade and Investment Partnership (T-TIP) on Related Textile and Apparel Trade Flows

The Trans-Atlantic Trade and Investment Partnership (T-TIP) is a high-standard free trade agreement currently under negotiation between the United States and the European Union (Akhtar & Jones, 2013). In 2013, as much as 36.9% and 59.9% of the world’s textile and apparel (T&A) exports went to T-TIP members respectively (WTO, 2014), suggesting implementation of the agreement may result in a significant change of existing T&A trade patterns around the world. To better understand the T&A-specific trade impact of T-TIP, this study intends to provide a quantitative analysis. While most existing studies have only evaluated the macroeconomic implications of T-TIP, findings of this study instead will augment our understanding of the textile-specific sectoral impact of the agreement and support related policymaking (Pelkmans, Lejour, Schrefler & Timini, 2014)