ABSTRACT
The lesson of international competition in steel is that national policies determine competitive outcomes. Governments make choices which affect both trade and investment. Government policies, both macroeconomic and sectoral, have altered the industrial landscape. The United States steel program is, in international trade agreement terms, solely a comprehensive safeguard action. Safeguards are generally considered to be temporary and used for purposes of adjustment. The net result was a global capacity surplus which drove down prices, utilization rates and profits, and forced a severe adjustment process on other segments of the world steel industry through the mechanism of international trade. Trade liberalization is a very fine goal in its own right, but as repeatedly pointed out in this text, it must be understood what the results of premature liberalization can be in a sector characterized by pervasive government intervention. In steel, public capital has been displacing private capital since the onset of the structural crisis.
