Abstract
On 27 July 1989, President Bush fulfilled a hastily-made campaign promise and approved a renewal, for two and a half years, of the protectionist system of ‘voluntary restraint agreements’ (VRAs) which had sheltered the US steel industry since the early 1980s. He had little choice: despite the predominance of free trade sentiments within his own administration, and regardless of a revival in the fortunes of the steel sector, the proponents of an aggressive, ‘strategic trade policy’ were in the ascendant.
I am grateful to Stephen Gill for his comments on an earlier version of this paper.
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Notes
See J. N. Bhagwati, ‘United States Trade Policy at the Crossroads’, World Economy, 12, 4 (1989) 440.
OECD, The Steel Market in 1988 and the Outlook for 1989 (Paris: OECD, 1989) 34.
Assessments of US steel subsidies may have been underestimated by calculations which ignore state government support. See A. Anderson and A. Rugman, ‘Subsidies in the U.S. Steel Industry: A New Conceptual Framework and Literature Review’, Journal of World Trade, 23, 6 (1989) 59–83.
OECD, The Iron and Steel Industry in 1980, (Paris: OECD, 1982), pp. 8–10.
See E. Dourille, ‘Sidérurgie et aluminium: la crise et son issue’, in M. Fouquin (ed.), Industrie mondiale: la compétitivité à tout prix (Paris: Economica, 1986) pp. 206–10.
For a detailed analysis of this period, see H. Van der Ven and T. Grunert, “The Politics of Transatlantic Steel Trade’, in Y. Mény and V. Wright (eds), The Politics of Steel: Western Europe and the Steel Industry in the Crisis Years (1974–1984) (Berlin and New York: De Gruyter, 1987) pp. 137–85.
and D. G. Tarr, ‘The Steel Crisis in the United States and the European Community: Causes and Adjustments’ in R. E. Baldwin et al. (eds), Issues in US-EC Trade Relations (Chicago and London: University of Chicago Press, 1988) pp. 179–187.
See I. Yamazawa, ‘Industry Growth and Foreign Trade: A Study of Japan’s Steel Industry’, Hitotsubashi Journal of Economics, 2 (1972) 41–59.
See T. K. McCraw and P. A. O’Brien, ‘Production and Distribution: Competition Policy and Industry Structure’, in T. K. McCraw (ed.), America versus Japan, (Boston: Harvard Business School Press 1988, p. 84ff and
I. C. Magaziner and T. M. Hout, Japanese Industrial Policy, (London: Policy Studies Institute, 1980) pp. 45–53.
See A. Rémy, ‘Les stratégies japonaises et allemandes dans les secteurs en crise: le cas de la sidérurgie’, Problèmes Economiques, 2095 (1988) 26–32. On ‘relational contracts’ in Japanese industry
see R. Dore, Flexible Rigidities: Industrial Policy and Structural Adjustment in the Japanese Economy 1970–1980 (London: The Athlone Press, 1986) pp. 72–85.
See R. Dore et al., Japan at Work: Markets, Management and Flexibility, (Paris: OECD, 1989).
See T. Kono, Strategy and Structure of Japanese Enterprises (London: Macmillan, 1985) pp. 310–11.
See I. C. Magaziner and R. B. Reich, Minding America’s Business: The Decline and Rise of the American Economy, (New York: Vintage Books, 1982) pp. 154–68.
See R. B. Reich, The Next American Frontier (New York: Penguin Books, 1984) pp. 174–7
and M. Borrus, “The Politics of Competitive Erosion in the US Steel Industry’, in J. Zysman and L. Tyson (eds), American Industry in International Competition: Government Policies and Corporate Strategies (Ithaca, NY, and London: Cornell University Press, 1983) pp. 60–105.
Congressional Budget Office, Has Trade Protection Revitalised Domestic Industries? (Washington DC: US Government Printing Office, 1986) pp. 39–58.
See K. Stegemann, Price Competition and Output Adjustment in the European Steel Market (Tübingen: Mohr 1977)
and K. Dyson, ‘West Germany: the Search for a Rationalist Consensus’ in J. Richardson (ed.) Policy Styles in Western Europe (London: Allen and Unwin, 1982) pp. 17–46.
See J. Esser and W. Fach, ‘Crisis Management “Made in Germany”: The Steel Industry’, in P. J. Katzenstein (ed.), Industry and Politics in West Germany: Towards the Third Republic (Ithaca, NY, and London: Cornell University Press, 1989) pp. 228–9.
On the concept of ‘minilateralism’, see R. Gilpin, The Political Economy of International Relations (Princeton, NJ: Princeton University Press, 1987) p. 372.
See A. Singh, ‘Third World Competition and De-industrialisation in Advanced Countries’, Cambridge Journal of Economics, 13 (1989) 103–120.
For a full survey of the new VRAs, see M. Lovatt, ‘VRAs — Up But Not Out’, Metal Bulletin Monthly 2 (1990) 32–4.
See R. Pomfret, ‘World Steel Trade at the Crossroads’, Journal of World Trade 3 (1988) pp. 85–6.
For the background to these manoeuvres, see S. Gill and D. Law, The Global Political Economy: Perspectives, Problems and Policies (Hemel Hempstead: Harvester-Wheatsheaf, 1988) p. 250ff.
See Financial Times, 21 June 1990, and F. Lazar, ‘Services and the GATT: US Motives and a Blueprint for Negotiations’, Journal of World Trade, 1 (1990) 135–45.
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© 1991 Michael Moran and Maurice Wright
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Rhodes, M. (1991). The State and the World Steel Market: Industrial Policy, Trade Regulation and the GATT Uruguay Round. In: Moran, M., Wright, M. (eds) The Market and the State. Palgrave Macmillan, London. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-1-349-21619-2_12
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