But as the retailers are discovering, it will take a silver bullet to kill the global quota system known as the Multi-Fiber Arrangement.

But in an elaborate global system known as the Multi-Fiber Arrangement, which is supposed to be dismantled by 2005, the United States, like Europe, established restrictions on imports from countries whose exports were thought to threaten the domestic apparel industry.

The accord commits countries to agree before the end of next year on a plan to phase out the Multi-Fiber Arrangement.

Under the "temporary" international Multi-Fiber Arrangement created 29 years ago, America negotiates import quotas by fabric and by country in the third world.

There already is in place a Multi-Fiber Arrangement, a system of quota agreements covering all international textile and apparel trade between the United States and foreign governments.

"Because of the Multi-Fiber Arrangement, nobody has felt it necessary to seek dumping relief," Mr. Bodner said yesterday.

In late 1990s and later, the focus was the textile business following the end of Multi-Fiber Arrangement (MFA).

Although it is more moderate than last year's, he said it would probably cause the United States to break international agreements under the Multi-Fiber Arrangement, which governs international trade in textiles.

The document, reviewing the functioning of the Multi-Fiber Arrangement governing about half the world's textile trade, said the United States and Canada were carrying out the present version of the accord more strictly than they did previous pacts.

Developing nations, particularly those in Asia, have been pressing rich countries to abolish the so-called Multi-Fiber Arrangement, which governs most world trade in textiles through bilateral tariffs and quotas.