Industry, pols want steel to become WTO priority
By Staff -- Purchasing, 11/4/1999 7:00:00 AM
Times are still tough for the steel industry, and American steel manufacturers can't afford any weakening of trade barriers, top steel executives have told Congress. While import levels have eased from last year's record highs, they still haven't returned to where they were before the Asian economic crisis triggered a surge in arrivals of low-cost, foreign-made steel.
"Many of the forces behind the steel crisis remain," James Haeck, executive vice president of Cleveland-based LTV Corp., told special hearings by the House and Senate steel caucuses. "Foreign steel industries are more subsidized, more protected, and more cartelized than any other industrial sector."
Sen. Jay Rockefeller (D, W.V.) says steel should be a top priority at the World Trade Organization's November summit in Seattle. During the joint-caucus hearings, Rockefeller calls on U.S. negotiators to protect American unfair trade statutes during the WTO meeting. Trading partners to the U.S. have said they want to discuss major changes in international trade law that stress multilateral decisions and an end to unilateral trade actions by large countries.
American steelmakers say the help other nations give their steel industries has built up more steelmaking capacity than the worldwide market needs. That makes it difficult for American companies to command the prices they desire and led last year to five bankruptcies and some short-term layoffs. Despite Clinton administration assurances that it will oppose efforts to discuss anti-dumping laws during the next round of multination trade negotiations, the steel industry is nervous about what might happen during the WTO meetings.
Nearly 100 steel producing and processing companies and the steel unions have signed a joint letter to President Clinton underscoring their concern about preserving U.S. dumping laws. The steel industry used those laws to get punitive tariffs imposed against several steelmaking nations for selling steel at prices the U.S. government determined were less in the U.S. than in its home market. Japanese steelmakers have appealed to the U.S. Court of International Trade, and the Japanese government is considering a request by its labor unions to file a complaint against the U.S. with the WTO.
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