China's Clothes Exports Get a Boost from Trade Expansion.

Byline: Carter Dougherty

Sep. 21--Tuesday's Senate vote on a bill to expand trade with China is the beginning of the U.S. effort to break into a vast market of 1.3 billion people, a task that will take years to bring benefits to American workers and consumers.

Chinese companies, rather than their American counterparts, are more likely to see quick results from the agreements in one area, clothing exports. U.S. workers and consumers, in contrast, will see the benefits of this agreement only slowly and incrementally as it is phased in over several years, albeit across many industries.

"It is going to take a while to reap the benefits so confidently predicted in congressional debates," said Greg Mastel, a trade specialist at the D.C.-based New American Foundation.

And extracting the full value of the U.S.-China trade …