http://europe.cnn.com/2002/BUSINESS/03/05/steel/index.html

http://europe.cnn.com/2002/WORLD/europe/03/06/steel.wto/index.html

This will not be tolerated by the rest of the world, esp. Europe and Asia.

There is some kind of irony in it: The greatest advocater of completely unrestricted free trade is facing an imminent collapse of one of its markets and has to protect it by reducing the imports...

Well its like being in a prock and a hard place...either way he is screwed...

The European markets do not have the same problems, although they are confronted with the same cheap steel from foreign countries. They do not have to cling to protectionism. So obviously, the US steel industrie itself is the problem not the world market.

The solution could be to upgrade the US steel industries such as it happened in other countries several years ago, e.g. the great fusions in Europe such as ThyssenKrupp.

IMO, The current measures are
1. a completely false message to the world markets.
2. a violation of WTO commitments.
3. just blind actionism to show the people who loudly cry "Save our steel" that Bush does something, even though this "something" will -according to many experts- not really improve the situation.