On May 2, six US congressmen sent a letter to Secretary of Commerce Carlos Gutierrez saying the programme "could place the United States in violation of a number of agreements under the World Trade Organisation".

Congressman Earl Blumenauer along with five other members of the Ways and Means Committee argued that the programme, a unilateral anti-dumping measure taken by the US, does not benefit United States businesses and consumers.

They wrote monitoring puts strain on relations with Viet Nam, which was grated permanent normal trade relations (PNTR) status by lawmakers earlier this year.

"We are deeply concerned that the disruption in trade caused by the import monitoring programme is cutting away at many of the benefits of grating PNTR status to Viet Nam. Even more troubling, these negative impacts come at no benefit to US apparel producers," read the letter.

The senators disagree with the programme "in general" but propose if the policy has to be enforced then certain limitations be imposed. They suggested that the programme only be applied to product groups that US manufactures have requested monitoring and there is evidence of "material injury".

In a letter dated May 11 to Virginia Foote, president of the US-Viet Nam Trade Council, Stephen Lamar, executive vice president of American Apparel & Footwear Association (AAFA) said that the AAFA is strongly against the programme.

"The AAFA believes that the US Department of Commerce needs to first identify the domestic apparel manufacturing that is being injured or that has the potential to be injured by dumped imports from Viet Nam (should there be a finding that there is dumping from Viet Nam)," the letter read.

"The AAFA believes there is little support or interest in this monitoring programme among domestic apparel producers because much of what is produced domestically does not compete against Vietnamese imports."

Lamar wrote that even with the programme there is no guarantee that more textile manufacturing contracts will flow back to US businesses.