"I'd be surprised if they don't appeal," said Laura Jones, executive director of the US Association of Importers of Textiles and Apparel.

Jones' group won a victory late on Thursday when the US Court of International Trade in New York agreed to its request for a preliminary injunction blocking the Bush administration from considering 12 petitions aimed at curbing billions of dollars of clothing imports from China.

US textile industry groups filed the petitions late last year to ward off a feared flood of cheap clothing imports from the Asian giant following the expiration of a decades-old import quota system on January 1.

The Bush administration's Committee for the Implementation of Textile Agreements (CITA) had been expected to begin making decisions on the import-curb requests in early February.

Domestic textile groups have urged the Bush administration to quickly appeal the injunction ruling, which they say threatens hundreds of thousands of textile jobs.

Justice Department lawyers are still reviewing the decision, which they received just before the New Year's holiday, Justice spokesman Charles Miller said.

Lloyd Wood, spokesman for American Manufacturers Trade Action Coalition, one of the groups that filed the petitions, said he expected the Bush administration to appeal the ruling, if only to protect its prerogative to conduct trade policy.

The terms of Beijing's entry in the World Trade Organization allows the United States to impose annual "safeguard" restrictions on textile and clothing imports from China through 2008.