Free Republic

Fri September 19, 2003 10:34 PM ET WASHINGTON (Reuters) - Hefty steel tariffs imposed by President Bush 18 months ago have had a slightly negative impact on U.S. economic growth, the U.S. International Trade Commission said on Friday. In a pair of reports sent to the White House and key congressional committees, the ITC estimated the steel tariffs had cost the United States about $30.4 million annually in lost economic growth, a tiny fraction compared to the overall economy which totals about $10 trillion. The reports set the stage for Bush to decide whether to end the tariffs early or...

Specter: U.S. to Maintain Steel Tariffs By LARA JAKES JORDAN .c The Associated Press WASHINGTON (AP) - A senior lawmaker from a steel state predicted Thursday the White House will keep tariffs on foreign-made steel in place - but tweak them to ease prices for consumers. Such a compromise would anger tariff supporters who refuse to cede ground in a debate that is flavored by presidential election politics as well as global economic policies. The U.S. International Trade Commission will release two reports Friday that are believed to hold the key to the tariffs' fate. ``There have been a number...

<p>PITTSBURGH -- U.S. Steel Corp., the nation's largest steel maker, said Thursday it will purchase bankrupt National Steel Corp. for about $750 million.</p> <p>Under the deal, U.S. Steel would also assume about $200 million of its smaller rival's debt.</p> <p>U.S. Steel could increase production capacity by as much as 40 percent and expects a combined annual cost savings of about $170 million within two years of purchase, company officials said. Savings will come from a reduction in redundant overhead, transportation costs and an improved labor contract, company officials said.</p>

In this past week we saw Colin Powell address the third world crowd at a conference in South Africa. Colin sides with them on most issues within the Bush Administration. He seems to favor letting Saddam Hussein off the hook for his murderous brutality against his own people as well as ignoring the threats Hussein poses to his neighbors as well as the entire free world with his weapons of mass destruction and his support for terrorists. He favors generous American aid to third world tyrants and wants American taxpayers to bail out the third world from its self imposed...

Pay up, or you're blocked: Indian ISPs tell US megasites By Andrew Orlowski in London Posted: 07/30/2002 at 10:48 EST America's biggest content providers could face a toll to enter India cyberspace, if plans mooted by the Indian ISP trade association bear fruit. Although the Internet Service Providers Association of India is split on the issue, several of the larger ISPs want to block access to eBay, MSN or Yahoo! unless the prociders pay a toll. "In order to increase revenue streams …we should ask [the portals] to pay if they want traffic on their sites from India," reports the...

BRUSSELS, Belgium, July 18 (UPI) -- The European Commission Thursday appeared set to urge European Union governments to slap sanctions on the United States for failing to lift punitive import duties on European steel products. President George W. Bush sparked protests from non-American steel producers this year when he decided to place tariff quotas and impose up to 30 percent extra duties on steel imports from March 20. The EC, along with other steel-exporting states, is seeking to overturn the U.S. safeguard measure in the World Trade Organization. As settlements often take more than a year to reach, the commission...

Honda Motor Co. airlifted as much as 200 tons of specialty steel to North America from Japan at the end of June to cover a shortage at its plants here and is poised to airlift 2,000 more tons this month if needed, the company confirmed last week. The highly unusual and costly measure comes amid a developing shortage of high-quality steel products in the United States after President Bush's decision to curb imports with tariffs of up to 30 percent. By acting to push prices higher, the tariffs have caused spot shortages as steel supplies get diverted to the highest...

BRUSSELS - The European Commission rejected any suggestion on Thursday that its determination to hit back at the United States in a steel row was flagging, but some EU diplomats said a decision to retaliate might be delayed. The EU has threatened to slap $300 million of sanctions on the United States after Washington launched new duties on steel imports in March. The Commission has set a July 19 deadline for a decision on whether to impose the sanctions by August. But the Financial Times said this week Trade Commissioner Pascal Lamy was looking for a way to avoid confrontation...

<p>WASHINGTON -- Honda Motor Co. is prepared to airlift 2,000 tons of carbon sheet steel to its U.S. and Canadian factories next month if the automaker can't secure adequate supplies from U.S. steel producers, the company said. The Japanese automaker's plans were prompted by steel-import tariffs of as much as 30 percent that President George W. Bush imposed in March to protect companies such as U.S. Steel Corp. and Bethlehem Steel Corp. As a result of the tariffs, steelmakers are renegotiating contracts, and Honda may face a shortfall. Honda's U.S. factories get more than 90 percent of the steel they use from domestic suppliers. Airlifting that much Japanese- made steel is a costly solution to what the company says it hopes will be a temporary problem. "It's not cheap," said Ron Lietzke, a spokesman for Honda in the U.S. "It's worth it for us to do this for a short time in order to maintain production at our plants in North America." Non-U.S. steelmakers, including Arcelor SA, the world's largest, the U.K.'s Corus Group Plc, and their U.S. customers are trying to avoid the tariffs by seeking a total of 2,000 exemptions for more than 1,300 different steel products. Trying to ship that much steel "would outdo the Berlin airlift," said Alan Wolff, counsel to domestic steel producers such as U.S. Steel, Bethlehem Steel and National Steel.</p>

America the Scofflaw By PAUL KRUGMAN Early in the Reagan administration I spent a year on the staff of the Council of Economic Advisers. While there I got a disillusioning look at how economic policy is really made. But one favorable surprise was how seriously U.S. officials took our international trade agreements. The Reagan administration, despite its free-trade rhetoric, was quite willing to protect industries for political gain; the most notable example was the "voluntary" restraint on Japanese car exports. Still, it was a firm rule that trade interventions had to be "GATT-legal" — that is, they couldn't violate the...

One of the main arguments against George W. Bush's decision to impose tariffs on foreign steel is that it would undermine U.S. efforts to get other countries to adopt free-trade policies. President Bush dismissed this argument and imposed trade protection anyway. However, the chickens are already coming home to roost.On a recent visit to Beijing, U.S. Trade Representative Robert Zoellick found the Chinese resistant to opening their market to our goods. Quite rightly, they asked Mr. Zoellick why should they let in more American goods when the U.S. has slapped large tariffs on their steel?Mr. Zoellick didn't have a...

European officials are set to announce retaliatory tariffs tomorrow in response to President Bush's decision earlier this month to slap duties on steel imports to the United States. An even larger trade war looms, however, as EU ministers have also drawn up a list of imports that will be taxed if the U.S. refuses to pay compensation for the trade barriers. In measures expected to be adopted Wednesday, the European Union will put tariffs ranging from 14.9 to 26 percent on 15 categories of steel product, compared with U.S. duties of 8 to 30 percent on 21 different products. The...

For education and discussion only. Not for commercial use. BRUSSELS, Belgium -- The European Union plans to give a preview Friday of the safeguard measures it plans to deploy to counter U.S. tariffs of up to 30 percent on some steel imports imposed to protect the American industry. EU spokesman Anthony Gooch reiterated the safeguard measures are not retaliation, but would only aim to prevent a surge of imports from countries such as China, Japan and South Korea that are also hit by American tariffs and are bound to look for markets other than the United States, they said. The...

The administration’s recent decision to impose a 30 percent tariff on steel imports was disappointing to free trade advocates. This measure will hurt far more Americans than it will help, and it takes a step backwards toward the protectionist thinking that dominated Washington in decades past. These steel tariffs also make it quite clear that the rhetoric about free trade in Washington is abandoned and replaced with talk of "fair trade" when special interests make demands. What most Washington politicians really believe in is government-managed trade, not free trade. Government-managed trade means government, rather than competence in the marketplace, determines...

While President George W. Bush's unwise decision to impose quot;temporaryquot; tariffs of 8 to 30 percent on steel will be described as quot;protectionquot; for the steel industry, in fact it is a tax increase on all Americans for the benefit of one industry.It is true that the steel industry (buoyed by helpful bureaucrats at the US International Trade Commission) had been clamoring for a 40 percent tariff at a cost of $283 for the average family of four, but the White House did not merely meet them half way - it gave them 75 percent of what they wanted. This...