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The US and EU have agreed to end a festering dispute over US steel and aluminium tariffs imposed by former president Donald Trump in 2018, removing an irritant in transatlantic relations and averting a spike in EU retaliatory tariffs, US officials have said. Commerce secretary Gina Raimondo told reporters on Saturday that the deal would maintain US section 232 tariffs of 25% on steel and 10% aluminium, while allowing “limited volumes” of EU-produced metals into the US duty free.... ...EU trade chief Valdis Dombrovskis confirmed the deal, writing on Twitter that “we have agreed with US to pause” the trade...

There are a couple of important economic lessons that the American people should learn. I'm going to title one "the seen and unseen" and the other "narrow well-defined large benefits versus widely dispersed small costs." These lessons are applicable to a wide range of government behavior, but let's look at just two examples. Last week, President Donald Trump enacted high tariffs on imports of steel and aluminum. Why in the world would the U.S. steel and aluminum industries press the president to levy heavy tariffs? The answer is simple. Reducing the amounts of steel and aluminum that hit our shores...

WASHINGTON, Nov. 4 - Victory may have a thousand fathers, but if President Bush's triumph this week had a Big Daddy it was indisputably Karl Rove - the seer, strategist and serious student of politics and the presidency that a grateful Mr. Bush himself referred to as the architect of his winning campaign. And with Mr. Bush's re-election, Mr. Rove has not only cemented his reputation as one of the canniest campaign gurus in a generation but has also put himself in position to shape second-term policies that could help realize his longtime goal of consolidating a broad Republican electoral...

...Mr. Bush was granted Bill Clinton's wish to live in "interesting times,"... Instead of inheriting an economic recovery as Mr. Clinton did, Mr. Bush began his term facing the end of the 1990s' investment bubble and a looming recession. And instead of inheriting a placid post-Cold War world, he was presented with September 11.... On the economy, he compromised on his first tax cut to win 12 Democratic Senate votes, but it proved too Keynesian and too long-delayed to pack much punch. So Mr. Bush used his Senate victory in 2002 to double down on his tax cut bet.... Yes,...

<p>WASHINGTON (AP) -- Democratic presidential front-runner John Kerry said Monday the White House should not have scrapped steep tariffs on foreign-made steel last year -- but would not put them back in place if he is elected.</p> <p>A spokesman for President Bush's re-election campaign said Kerry's comments highlight his ever-changing position on the controversial trade issue.</p>

For education and discussion only. Not for commercial use. Ha Noi, March 2 (VNA)- The tariff rates levied on six categories of iron and steel are cut to zero, according to the Finance Ministry's decision issued on Monday. This is the second such decision made by the Finance Ministry in three days in an effort to ease the domestic price hike. The first decision signed on Feb. 27 already halved the rates down to between 3 and 20 percent from between five and 40 percent. The decision was warmly welcomed by enterprises, saying they can now make massive imports of...

<p>When President Bush imposed tariffs on imported steel in early 2002 -- and when he lifted them 20 months later -- pundits were convinced the decisions were based less on economics and more on how many votes the decisions would win or lose for Republicans in the 2002 congressional elections and this year's presidential election.</p>

<p>Faced with the prospect of reciprocal policies that would punish U.S. exporters, President Bush recently backed away from the steel tariffs he had imposed earlier. Of course, abandoning that protectionism led to attacks from those who were being protected at others' expense, dressed up as patriotism and sovereignty arguments, as when United Steelworkers of America President Leo Gerard called it the "latest in a long line of WTO [World Trade Organization] decisions undercutting America." Those arguments are bogus.</p>

China Lifts Steel Tariffs Imposed on U.S. SHANGHAI, China (AP)--China lifted tariffs on steel imports Friday, eliminating restrictions imposed last year amid a trade dispute with Washington. China imposed three-year tariffs on foreign steel products in November 2002, saying it needed to compensate for duties imposed by the United States. President Bush scrapped the 20-month-old U.S. tariffs on Dec. 4 amid heavy pressure from trading partners. ``In view of current developments in the steel market ... the Ministry of Commerce has decided to discontinue safeguard tariffs on steel imports, effective Dec. 26, 2003,'' the ministry said on its Web site....

<p>President Bush’s recent decision to eliminate the steel tariffs couldn’t have been easy to make, but it was the correct decision. With the European Union threatening to retaliate and the domestic industries that use steel shedding jobs, something had to be done.</p>

WASHINGTON, Dec 23 (Reuters) - U.S. steel imports in November fell 34.1 percent from the same month a year ago, the government said on Tuesday despite the Bush administration's repeal of tariffs it imposed last year. U.S. November steel imports fell to 1.661 metric tons from 2.520 million in November 2002, the U.S. Commerce Department said. In its preliminary data for November, the department also said that imports fell 3.6 percent from 1.723 million metric tons in October. Imports in October were revised upward from 1.543 million metric tons. The Commerce report includes cumulative imports only for the first 10...

Steely resolve needed by unions Posted: December 12, 20031:00 a.m. Eastern © 2003 WorldNetDaily.com When President Bush imposed tariffs on some imported steel in 2001, I was genuinely surprised. Given the neocons' irrational lust for "free trade" to the point of allowing a number of other U.S. industries to be ravaged, it was extremely uncharacteristic for them to place any sort of levy on any import, most of which are cheaper and are hastening the destruction of other U.S. industries. Bush said he made his decision to impose the tariffs for three years to help save the U.S. steel industry. True or...

<p>Those of us, including the European Union and seven other countries, who have called consistently on the World Trade Organization to condemn U.S. safeguard tariffs on steel feel no sense of triumph that the U.S. has now lifted those safeguard measures.</p>

For education and discussion only. Not for commercial use. When I first came to Washington, it was to work on the House Republican Research Committee, an organ of the then-minority GOP leadership.  It was 1994, and the World Trade Organization had just emerged from the Uruguay Round trade talks, but Congress had to pass implementation legislation before the United States could join.  As an economic historian, I wrote a white paper advising against accepting the WTO´s new dispute settlement mechanism as a threat to American sovereignty.   Unlike the previous General Agreement on Tariff and Trade (GATT), which was based...

ONDON, Dec. 5 - One day after President Bush abandoned American protective tariffs on imported steel to avert a trade war with Europe, Pascal Lamy, the European trade commissioner, said he would use the same tactics again in another long-running trade dispute with the United States. Mr. Lamy said the European Union would press ahead with punitive tariffs on some $4 billion worth of goods from politically pivotal regions of the United States if Washington did not end tax breaks for American corporations' offshore operations. The tax breaks have already been found by the World Trade Organization to be an...

<p>Pittsburgh experienced a quick visit by President Bush on Tuesday, though not quite as stealthy as his Thanksgiving visit to Baghdad. He scooped up nearly a million dollars in campaign contributions but did not address the subject foremost in River City dwellers' minds -- steel tariffs.</p>

U.S. faces new pressure on trade After steel victory, a united Europe pushes its advantage LONDON A day after President George W. Bush ended U.S. tariffs on steel to avert a trade war with Europe, Pascal Lamy, the European Trade Commissioner, said Friday that he would press ahead with punitive tariffs worth some $4 billion if Washington did not end tax breaks for offshore U.S. corporations. . His remarks reflected assessments by some European trade experts that, after the American retreat on steel, European negotiators sensed a shift in the power balance of global trade in their favor. . Patricia...

<p>PITTSBURGH, Pennsylvania (AP) -- Calvin Croftcheck was faxing handwritten messages addressed to President Bush from union workers, their families and retirees when a worker at the U.S. Steel-owned Clairton Coke Works delivered the bad news: tariffs on foreign steel were being lifted.</p>

When you think to get mad at the World Trade Organization, bear in mind that the good old U.S.A. was foremost in recommending its creation in 1995. If the idea is free trade, then somebody has to have the authority to rule that you're cheating. There are many ways to cheat. You manufacture a mousetrap and persuade your congressman to introduce a bill that gives to mousetrap manufacturers tax endearments that result in making the mousetraps very cheap to manufacture. Or you can get your compliant bank to extend credits to the company which it could not have got from...

MILWAUKEE -- Democratic presidential candidate Dennis Kucinich said Thursday that abolishing tariffs on steel products hurts domestic steel producers without benefiting manufacturers. President Bush earlier Thursday scrapped import tariffs he had imposed last year to help the battered U.S. steel industry. Imposing the protective tariffs won the president support from domestic steel producers, but the tariffs angered steel-consuming industries in such states as Wisconsin, Minnesota and Michigan. Kucinich cited an International Trade Commission report that found abolishing tariffs wouldn't lower steel prices for steel-consuming manufacturers. He also said protecting domestic steel producers would save steel consumers the transportation cost of...