This book examines the current difficulties facing the U.S. steel industry and policy options to tackle them.

This book analyzes the causes underlying the decline of the United States steel industry and the impact of that decline on our institutions of procedural democracy. It locates steel's economic demise in the logic of an economy organized for profit maximization and demonstrates how the industry's economic policies helped open the U.S. market to foreign imports while simultaneously forcing steel officials to turn to the government for assistance.

This clear, concise summary of the in-depth analyses presented in The Political Economy of American Trade Policy examines the level, form, and evolution of American trade protection. In case studies of trade barriers imposed during the 1980s to help the steel, semiconductor, automobile, lumber, wheat, and textile and apparel industries, the contributors trace the evolution of efforts to obtain protection, protectionist measures, and their results. A chapter assessing the common themes that emerge from the studies concludes that the focus of current trade law is exclusively on the individual protection-seeking industries, with little regard for indirect effects on using industries or for consumers. Reform could usefully take these effects into account. This volume will interest policymakers, business executives, and anyone interested in trade policy formulation and practice.