Bush finally has chance to help U.S. steel industry

The U.S. International Trade Commission has finally seen the light, and now it is up to the Bush administration to move quickly to preserve what is left of the domestic steel industry.
The commission ruled this week that subsidized imports have hurt American steel companies. That it took the commission years to come to that realization is amazing; that thousands of U.S. workers lost their jobs in the meantime is a disgrace.
While the trade commission has dawdled, more than a dozen domestic steel producers, including LTV Steel, have been forced into bankruptcy. Some are still struggling; others have closed their doors for good.
For the worst-case scenario, we need look no farther than Warren, where the furnaces and mills of CSC Ltd., formerly Copperweld Steel Corp., are cold and shuttered. Attempts to revive the plant failed and it is now expected to be sold off piecemeal.
Findings: The six-member panel found that 12 of 33 domestic product lines, accounting for 79 percent of all steel produced in the United States, have suffered serious harm from cheaper imports.
The commission will hold hearings and submit recommendations to the Bush administration by Dec. 19. Among the possibilities are import quotas, tariffs or a combination of the two.
In recent years, the loudest voices have been in support of the U.S. steel companies and workers who have been losing work to unfair foreign competition. Now that the commission has finally found that foreign countries have been subsidizing their imports to the United States in unfair ways, watch for the free-traders to begin screaming for the administration's attention.
Consequences: It is true that cracking down on unfair imports could raise prices on a durable goods, such as cars and appliances, that use large amounts of steel. But unfair trade has been exacting a higher cost from society, by killing American jobs and crippling the nation's very ability to produce steel for itself.
President Bush will have until Feb. 19 to decide what quotas or tariffs to pursue against Brazil, China, Russia, Korea, Japan and other nations that have been exporting their possible unemployment problems to our shores.
We urge the president to act quickly and decisively to save what is left of the steel industry in the United States. Every day he delays, more foreign steel is off-loaded from ships in U.S. harbors and more American steelworkers go home to tell their families that they are losing their jobs.