Comment: 11 pages, 1Figure and 9 tablesTo establish an updated understanding of the U.S. textile and apparel (TAP) industrys competitive position within the global textile environment, trade data from UN-COMTRADE (1996-2016) was used to calculate the Normalized Revealed Comparative Advantage (NRCA) index for 169 TAP categories at the four-digit Harmonized Schedule (HS) code level. Univariate time series using Autoregressive Integrated Moving Average (ARIMA) models forecast short-term future performance of Revealed categories with export advantage. Accompanying outlier analysis examined permanent level shifts that might convey important information about policy changes, influential drivers and random events.