A Close Look at the U.S. Steel Industry: Protective Tariffs and Their Effect on the Economies of East Asia

The U.S. steel industry has a long history of being protected, first when it was an infant industry in 1791 and later as it became a mature industry and needed breathing room to allow it to restructure so that it could compete against more efficient foreign producers. In recent years the steel industry has resorted to antidumping laws to ward off foreign competition. In the first quarter of 2002, President Bush imposed tariffs of up to 30 percent on foreign steel producers in many countries, including those in East Asia. This tariff, which was the result of a finding that some foreign steel companies had dumped their steel on the American market, may be the first shot in what might become a trade war. A number of countries have filed protests with the WTO seeking compensation for the tariff and some countries have already taken retaliatory measures. These recent trade actions have a ripple effect throughout the East Asian countries, including Korea, and the world. For example, if the United States market becomes closed to the steel companies in the EU, those steel companies will have to try to sell more steel within the EU at a time when Chinese, Korean and Japanese steel companies will also be trying to penetrate the EU market to make up for lost American sales. This paper will explore some of these issues, with an emphasis on the effects that steel protectionism in the United States will have on their industries and their economies. A different version of this paper was first published in 2002 and was reprinted in 2009. The present version includes a bibliography on trade, including links to more than 100 studies on trade.