President Bush lifted safeguard measures regarding steel imports
US President George W. Bush, in order to avoid a trade war, determined to rescind safeguard measures regarding steel imports that were in effect for twenty months . The duties were implemented after the investigation conducted by US International Trade Commission (ITC). ITC determined that the steel imports into US cause material injury to
US steel industry.
In line with these developments, Bush administration imposed temporary safeguard measures on ten categories of steel products under the scope of S201 of the Trade Act of 1974 with the tariff rate ranging between 8% to 30% on the imports from
Europe, Asia and
South America. The tariffs were implemented in March 2002 to be in effect for three years with the purpose of protecting domestic US industry. However, World Trade Organization (WTO) and certain countries objected the tariffs.
After WTO's ruling that the tariffs implemented by Bush were illegal, Bush administration started reviewing the tariffs in order to decide whether to lift them or not. Meanwhile, EU,
Japan and South
Korea declared that on the condition that Bush does not lift the tariffs, they will implement retaliatory tariffs on the imports from US.
In the framework of these developments, Bush announced yesterday that he determined to lift steel safeguard measures, taking into consideration that the countries, which objected tariffs hold great significance for commercial and political affairs of US.