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BELMONT, N.C. (AP) - After suffering through thousands of job losses when textile plants closed after the North American Free Trade Agreement, the people of North Carolina's mill towns can't be expected to rally behind another free-trade deal.
But President Bush is coming Friday to ask for their support anyway. Faced with a threat from Chinese manufacturers and grasping for anything that might turn around the struggling textile industry, some members of his audience may be willing to take a chance.
"There's no doubt textiles came out on the short end of trade deals that have gone before this," said Harding Stowe, president of R.L. Stowe Mills Inc. "We can't undo any of that. We need to live in the present and look to the future and that means competing against China. And CAFTA will help us do that."
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