Steel Products Prices North America
March 31, 2015
Letter to Editor: Steel Quotas Not the Answer
Written by John Packard
Last week a number of steel mill CEO’s testified before the U.S. Congress about the flood of steel imports and the need to protect the domestic steel industry. Separate from the CEO’s testimony, former Nucur CEO called for quotas to be implemented against foreign steel which he considered to be unfairly traded. Steel Market Update received the following letter to the editor reminding us of some history and refuting Mr. DiMicco’s calls for quotas:
The steel workers union (USW) strike in 1966 when over 500,000 steel workers went on strike was the beginning of larger steel imports into the USA. Companies around the USA needed steel for the automobile industry, the construction industry and the growing defense industry involved in the Vietnam war and they turned to the Europeans for help. It would be the beginning of steel exports from Europe to the USA where a high dollar value was making exporting very attractive and helped the Europeans to build up a strong steel industry.
