ABSTRACT
The massive US trade deficit gave rise to a new wave of concern over foreign unfair trade practices and proposals for dealing with them, exemplified by the Gephardt amendment. In a fact sheet accompanying that speech, the Reagan administration acknowledged that unfair trade practices have been responsible for only a fraction of the US trade deficit. The earliest types of unfair trade practices to be condemned in US law are dumping and subsidization. In providing relief from injury due to import competition, US law draws a number of legitimate distinctions between unfair trade competition and fairly priced imports. For unfair trade practices, the law mandates offsetting tariffs in the form of antidumping and countervailing duties. Confronted with this situation, the US steel industry has been active in seeking import relief from foreign unfair trade practices in the form of both subsidization and dumping.
