[Congressional Record Volume 149, Number 176 (Tuesday, December 9, 2003)]
[Senate]
[Pages S16135-S16137]
From the Congressional Record Online through the Government Publishing Office [www.gpo.gov]

      By Mr. BYRD (for himself, Mr. Bayh, and Mr. Rockefeller):
  S. 1997. A bill to reinstate the safeguard measures imposed on 
imports of certain steel products, as in effect on December 4, 2003; to 
the Committee on Finance.
  Mr. BYRD. Mr. President, last week, the Bush administration--in what 
has become its normal pattern--ignored the pleas of thousands of 
hardworking Americans. It lifted the steel tariffs it had promised the 
U.S. steel industry and imposed on foreign imports back in March of 
2002.
  Despite its earlier pledge to stand by America's steelworkers, the 
White House, in typical fashion, decided to turn its back on our 
highest valued workers and most vulnerable retirees. In a fit of pique 
and hard-hearted hubris, the White House decided to lift U.S. tariffs 
on foreign steel imports 15

[[Page S16136]]

months ahead of time, instead of letting the tariffs stay in place 
until March 2005, as is permitted by U.S. law.
  Why? Why would the White House betray America's steel industry--the 
backbone of America's industrial base--particularly during this time of 
war? Of national emergency? No. Because the President feared 
retaliation from America's trading partners, he quivered at the threat 
that they would retaliate against U.S. exports if he did not lift the 
201 tariffs. He cowered in the face of exactly those nations whose 
steel exports to the United States have driven 42 U.S. steel companies 
to their knees and into bankruptcy. His resolve collapsed in the face 
of retaliatory threats from America's most virulent competitors, whose 
illegal trade against the United States has already cost nearly 50,000 
steelworkers their jobs.
  America's foreign trade opponents gambled that this President lacked 
the resolve to stand up to them and to the WTO. Do you know? They were 
right. They were sadly correct.
  But this President, George W. Bush, did not need to cave like a 
``weak willy'' in the face of belligerent foreign bullies. Instead, he 
could have invoked Article XXI of the GATT, a viable trade tool that 
has been legitimately and successfully employed by the United States in 
the past to exempt itself from the GATT, now the WTO, in a time of war 
or national emergency. The President on July 31, 2003, formally 
proclaimed our Nation to be in a continued state of emergency. As a 
result of the President's own misguided and ill-advised actions, we 
remain engaged militarily in Iraq.
  On July 31, 2003, President Bush formally declared that, in 
accordance with section 202(d) of the National Emergencies Act, he was 
``continuing for one year the national emergency with respect to 
Iraq.'' We also continue to face an ongoing war against terrorism, both 
here at home and abroad.
  So, President Bush had--and has--ample authority to invoke a 
provision of GATT 1994, negotiated by the United States and available 
to all WTO Members, that would permit him to exempt protections for the 
U.S. steel industry from retaliation by foreign countries.
  But this President has so far lacked the foresight or the fortitude 
to take that step. Confronted with real threats of economic retaliation 
by determined competitors, the President folds like a house of cards 
astride the San Andreas fault.
  That is why, today, I am introducing a bill that will do what the 
President refused to do. It will reinstate the 201 relief and reimpose 
the 201 tariffs against foreign steel imports. Under my bill, the 201 
tariffs will be put back in place to stop foreign import surges, just 
as they did before the President so ill-advisedly lifted the tariffs 
last Thursday. And the tariffs will remain in place through March 5, 
2005.
  This administration should not have been bullied into abandoning the 
U.S. steel industry. Our steel industry is key to the national economic 
security of our Nation. Without steel, we cannot guarantee America's 
national security. Without steel, we could not have rebuilt after 
September 11. And I am not the only one who thinks that steel is 
integral to America's economic and national security. Just a few days 
before that fateful September day, on August 26, 2001, President Bush 
told America's steelworkers: ``If you're worried about the security of 
the country and you become over reliant upon foreign sources of steel, 
it can easily affect the capacity of our military to be well supplied. 
Steel is an important jobs issue; it is also an important national 
security issue.''
  With an annual take deficit of almost $500 billion, Americans have a 
right to expect that international trade rules with work for them; not 
against them. They also have a right to know that the United States can 
respond as it must to the type of trade crises that have been suffered 
by America's steel industry for years.
  There was absolutely no reason to lift the steel 201 tariffs. They 
are fully consistent with both U.S. law and our international 
agreements--regardless of the view of the WTO. The purpose of 201 
relief is to give the domestic industry time to adjust to import 
competition. Our valiant steel industry is doing just that by pursuing 
unprecedented restructuring and new investment. Since the 201 tariffs 
were imposed, flat-rolled steel producers alone have invested more than 
$3 billion to enhance their productivity.
  Critics of the 201 relief have been proved wrong on every significant 
fact concerning that relief. They said that once the tariffs were 
imposed, steel prices would go through the roof. Yet, prices have risen 
only modestly, and much less than abroad. The critics claimed that U.S. 
steel companies would do nothing to improve their competitiveness. But 
our Nation is witnessing the most dramatic restructuring in the 
industry's history. The critics also claimed that the tariffs would be 
bad for the U.S. economy, but the non-partisan U.S. International Trade 
Commission, ITC, recently found that the potential costs are 
minuscule--only about 2 percent of what Americans spend each month at 
McDonald's--and not even a drop in the bucket compared to the value we 
gain by restoring a critical U.S. industry to long-term 
competitiveness.
  Other nations' actions in this Section 201 dispute have been truly 
disgraceful. The European Union originally threatened to retaliate 
against the United States immediately upon the President's application 
of the safeguard measures in March 2002. In the end, it hesitated. But 
its threat was sufficient to extort from the administration nearly 
unlimited exclusions from the tariffs to benefit foreign producers.
  Acquiescing to this type of bullying jeopardizes the future of the 
U.S. steel industry, and it undermines the integrity of, and support 
for, the entire international trading system. Americans cannot be 
expected to support a system that works against them, rather than for 
them.
  By lifting the tariffs, the administration is allowing Brazil, the 
European Union, Japan, and other nations, once again, to flood the U.S. 
market with imports. The Bush administration could have stood up for 
America's steelworkers like those at Weirton, WV, and Wheeling-
Pittsburgh Steel in West Virginia, and demanded that other countries 
respect the legitimate rights of the United States in the world trading 
system. But this administration chose to back down, to lose face, to 
sit back and watch, once more, while thousands of additional U.S. steel 
jobs are destroyed by wave after wave of foreign imports.
  The administration does not seem to care if the U.S. steel industry 
is destroyed at a time of war and in the midst of a national emergency. 
President Bush did not even care enough to personally inform the U.S. 
steel industry, its workers, and their families of his decision to lift 
the tariffs. No!! Instead, he sent a trade negotiator, Mr. Zoellick, to 
do his dirty work. Ambassador Zoellick had the audacity to tell us that 
the tariffs are ``no longer necessary.'' No longer necessary. And why 
did he say that they are no longer necessary? They are no longer 
necessary because, he said, ``these safeguard measures have achieved 
their purpose.''
  The only purpose that I can see in this decision to shut the tariff 
program down is to succumb to threats and demands from abroad. The only 
effect will be the loss of more steel manufacturing jobs here at home.
  On October 27, 2000, Mr. Dick Cheney--do you know him? He is now Vice 
President of the United States--just a few days before the elections he 
came to Weirton, WV, to campaign for the Bush-Cheney ticket. During 
that visit, Mr. Cheney forcefully pledged to help America's 
steelworkers. He said, ``We will never lie to you. If our trading 
partners violate our trading laws, we will respond swiftly and 
firmly.''
  Promise made, promise broken. Unfortunately, like so many commitments 
this administration has made, its pledge to help America's steel 
industry got off to a headline-grabbing start, but has now been 
discarded, out of the glare of the campaign spotlight.
  So now, only 3 years after Mr. Cheney's campaign-season vow of 
honesty to America's steelworkers, this White House has taken an axe to 
the 201 tariffs and betrayed the trust of thousands of American 
families whose paychecks depend on the U.S. steel industry.
  Mr. President, the Bush White House has absolutely failed the working 
families across this country. This White House has traded the best 
interests of the American people for the big special interests of 
corporate campaign contributors. It is no surprise that the Bush 
Administration would turn its back on steelworkers.

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  When the Bush-Cheney ticket needed West Virginia's votes in 2000, it 
pledged to help our steel industry. At first, it appeared as though the 
administration would follow through on that promise. The White House 
applied the steel tariffs, for which West Virginia was thankful and for 
which I and other Senators congratulated, commended and thanked the 
administration. But then the President exempted import after import 
from those tariffs. Now the President has eliminated the tariffs 
completely.
  The Bush White House may have forgotten the promise made to the steel 
industry in West Virginia, but thousands of West Virginians and other 
steelworkers across the Nation will not forget. The recognize a fair-
weather friend when they seen one.
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