The Office of Textiles and Apparel (OTEXA) is an office within the Department of Commerce's International Trade Administration responsible for administering U.S. textile and apparel trade policy. OTEXA represents the textile and apparel sector in U.S. trade negotiations and supports the industry's competitiveness.
OTEXA's responsibilities include:
- Administering textile and apparel chapters of U.S. free trade agreements (USMCA, CAFTA-DR, KORUS) — particularly the "yarn forward" and "fiber forward" rules of origin
- Managing tariff preference levels (TPLs) — quotas for limited duty-free entry of goods that don't meet FTA rules of origin
- Operating the textile correlation system — mapping changes in the HTS to historical statistical data
- Coordinating with the Committee for the Implementation of Textile Agreements (CITA) — the inter-agency committee handling textile safeguards and short supply petitions
- Maintaining the OTEXA website — the central source for U.S. textile and apparel trade data, agreement texts, and program guidance
Textile classification under the HTS is notoriously complex — Chapters 50-63 contain hundreds of headings driven by fiber content, fabric construction, and end use. OTEXA publishes correlations, fiber-content tools, and rules-of-origin tariff shift charts that brokers and importers rely on for textile classification and origin work.
OTEXA also handles short supply petitions under FTAs, which allow goods made from fibers or yarns not available in commercial quantities in the FTA region to qualify for preferential treatment despite not meeting the standard yarn-forward rule.