I, T-Shirt

A T-shirt's journey unravels the costs of protectionism.

Kerry Howley from the January 2006 issue

(Page 2 of 2)

Limits on Chinese imports hit American pocketbooks, but more disturbingly, they've distorted the production cycle in countries desperate for trading opportunities. As Rivoli explains, quotas imposed on China led production to shift to Hong Kong; when Hong Kong was hit with similar restrictions, factories popped up in the Philippines and Sri Lanka. Factories throughout Asia and Africa now depend on the U.S. quota system to keep China from putting them out of business. When restrictions on China lessen, fall, or merely change, factories will likely close in Cambodia and Bangladesh--places where being jobless carries significantly more risks than in North Carolina.

That's not to say that all is bleak in the developing world. In fact, the brightest moments in Rivoli's travelogue happen in the least developed country she visits. The one free market Rivoli finds isn't in Texas, where cotton grows out of taxpayer largesse, or China, where the state constrains labor mobility and helps pack factory floors, but in Dar es Salaam, Tanzania, where T-shirts go to be reborn.

The average American throws away about 68 pounds of clothing and textiles per year, much of which finds its way to Eastern Europe, Asia, and, most commonly, Africa. Castoff clothes, donated to charities like the Salvation Army and eventually sold to African middlemen, enter a complex distribution network. Studying conditions in a rural Tanzanian village between 1985 and 1995, sociologist Tony Waters noted that not much had changed in 10 years of economic liberalization. Except that is, for one thing: The villagers were better dressed. A constant influx of used American clothing had brought affordable tees to Tanzania.

The mitumba trade, as it is known, is a free-trade success story in the unlikeliest of places. When bales of used clothing show up on Tanzania's shores, dealers bid on them and set up shop in outdoor markets. Pricing is based on the demands of the African public, and tastes in that market are no less dynamic than they would have been the first time around in shopping malls and sports stores. Tanzanians pay well for T-shirts advertising winning sports teams, less for summer camps and family reunions. Recognizable logos fetch a premium, but knock-offs fool no one. Competition is tough, prices are fluctuating, and businesses are small. Dealers tell Rivoli that clothing made in Tanzania has just started popping up, ripe for resale, in mitumba bins.

What emerges in Tanzania is not just a freer market, but a better narrative--a story of choices, change, and competition rather than scripted stasis. This is clearly the tale Rivoli set off wanting to tell. The mitumba trade, she writes, "is run by the masses rather than the elite, and is governed by relationships among importers, customers, drivers, menders and dealers rather than by what many observers have titled the 'kleptocracies' still common in much of Africa."

Rivoli's optimism in places like Tanzania, and the power of trade to bring reform from the bottom up, permeate the travelogue. But for a story that takes place primarily in Washington, this sunny view seems oddly misplaced. Customers may be king in Dar es Salaam, but in Washington, the Department of Commerce still runs the show.

It's a valuable exercise to follow the tortured life of a T-shirt as it navigates the perversions of international trade. But to see what we are sacrificing by embracing protectionism while preaching free markets, Americans need look no further than their closets.�

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