The Washington Post is reporting that pressure to curb steel imports is being put on the Bush administration by senators and congressmen from steel producing states, including Rep. Sander M. Levin (D-Mich.), Sen. Max Baucus (D-Mont.), Sen. Orrin Hatch (R-Utah), and Sen. Jay Rockefeller (D-W. Va.).
washingtonpost.com
washingtonpost.com
You're probably aware that the steelworker's unions and steel manufacturers are behind the pressure, it's not like Bush thought this up on his own, nor did the senators and congressmen who represent steel producing states think of this on their own.
uswa.org
aiis.org
I like what Adam Smith said about barriers to free trade - if they can't make it as cheap or as well as people do in other countries then they are in the wrong business. That's in the abstract, and we all know it's true. But in reality what happens to the country if we lose the steel industry? On the third hand, maybe it's just political posturing to get their attention before the administration starts negotiating another round of trade agreements.
>>By means of glasses, hotbeds, and hotwalls, very good grapes can be raised in Scotland, and very good wine too can be made of them at about thirty times the expence for which at least equally good can be brought from foreign countries. Would it be a reasonable law to prohibit the importation of all foreign wines, merely to encourage the making of claret and burgundy in Scotland?<<
The Wealth of Nations, Book IV, Chapter II, p423 |
