Analysis: Bush decision puts steel in WTO's backbone
David E. Sanger, New York Times
Published December 5, 2003 WTO05
WASHINGTON, D.C. -- President Bush had little choice Thursday when he reversed himself and lifted the tariffs on imported steel that he imposed last year.
For the first time in his nearly three years in office, the president, who has often reveled in the exercise of American power, finally met an international organization that had figured out how to hit back at the administration where it would hurt. Employing relatively untested powers, the eight-year-old World Trade Organization (WTO) authorized European and Asian nations to devise retaliatory tariffs against the United States, just 11 months before a presidential election. Not surprisingly, the Europeans pulled out an electoral map and announced they would single out products made in the states Bush most needs to win a second term.
In fact, what the WTO accomplished when it forced the Bush White House into a rare 180-degree turn was exactly what its American champions envisioned and its opponents warned about during the first big globalization debates of the 1990s. Acting as the final arbiter of the world's trade rules, it reversed the politics of protectionism, making sure that nations that protect their markets -- in the name of saving jobs -- are forced to pay a steep price.
Read the Rest of the Story by Clicking on the Title
Steel Tariff & WTO
Threaded Mode