Word: steel
(lookup in dictionary)
(lookup stats)
Dates: during 1980-1989
Sort By: most recent first
(reverse)
...industry is more suffused with nationalistic pride than steelmaking. Last week brought a chilling whiff of the protectionist sentiments that are easily aroused when steelmen start complaining of foreign competition. At issue were charges filed in January with the U.S. Commerce Department by a group of seven American steel producers, including U.S. Steel, Bethlehem Steel and Jones & Laughlin Steel. The companies charged that foreign producers, mostly from Western Europe, had chiseled their way into a 19% import share of the U.S. market by selling government subsidized steel to American buyers...
Since then, the steel business has gone from bad to worse around the world. In the U.S., more than 30% of the industry's 450,000-man work force is now unemployed or working short time, with steel mills operating at their lowest level since 1938. The situation in Europe is equally glum. During the past two years, there have been strikes in Britain and riots in Belgium and France as a result of job losses. The European steel industry ran about $2 billion in the red last year...
...American steel companies charge that the Europeans are using cutthroat tactics, including predatory pricing and domestic subsidies, to sell their products in the U.S. at less than it costs to manufacture them. They maintain that the Europeans can sell their products cheaply because many producers are either outright government owned or else heavily subsidized...
Last week, almost five months to the day after the industry's complaints were filed, the administrative clock ran out, and the Commerce Department issued a preliminary ruling that foreign steel producers from seven European nations, including Britain and West Germany, as well as producers in South Africa and Brazil, were selling in the U.S. market at unfairly low prices. Effective immediately, importers of their goods will have to post bonds on shipments pending final determination of damages later this year. Said Viscount Etienne Davignon, European Community commissioner for industry in Brussels, in response: "It has been quite clear...
...been meeting privately with European Community officials in a search for some sort of agreement that would head off the need for action by the Commerce Department. Washington's preferred solution was a voluntary pledge by the Europeans to limit exports. Since 1978 the Japanese have kept their steel sales in the U.S. to approximately 6 million tons annually. It was hoped that such a self-restraint deal could be used by the Administration to persuade the American producers to with draw their complaints...