Seminar paper from the year 2019 in the subject Business economics - Economic Policy, grade: A+, University of South Australia (McGill), course: International Business, language: English, abstract: The central research question is linked to the implications of protectionism in the steel industry in the US. The hypothesis is that trade protectionism leads to higher prices and massive job losses. The case study design is employed as is allows for the in depth understanding and examination of the steel industry in the US and the implications of the trade policies on the jobs as well as prices. The research applied archival research method applying a mixed methodology. The findings of the research indicate that the application of protectionism in the steel sector would harm not only the consumers but the industry being protected. It can be concluded that protectionism has negative implications in terms of higher prices and loss of jobs. The project was restricted by the research design as the use of a single case study limits the comparability and thus the generalizability of the results. The research focused only on the steel industry in the US thus restricting the applications of the findings in other sectors or industries in the US or even the steel industries in other countries. The research implies that trade policies in the US should favor the use of market forces dictated by the principles of the WTO rather than focusing on the nationalism of the economies. The economic nationalism in the United States has risen in the past couple of years, fueled by and fueling the election of President Donald Trump. With the increased call for nationalism of the economies comes the view that protectionism has achieved great success in the history of the United States. However, the calls for greater protectionism ignores the vast amounts of academic analysis and contemporary reporting that indicates that the trade protectionism in the United States has led to immense economic costs on the economy and the American consumers.

Drawing upon case studies of the steel industry in the US, Japan, South Korea, Brazil and India, this book explains how and why the steel industry has shifted from advanced capitalist countries to late industrializing countries. Anthony P. D'Costa examines the relationship between industrial change and institutional responses to technological diffu

Originally published in 1989. The international steel industry suffered a major decline after the onset of world recession in 1973, perhaps suffering more plant closures and job losses than any other sector. This book analyses the decline, surveying the various factors which have contributed to it, such as changing production strategies, changes in demand and world trade and changing regional production trends. It goes on to examine the impact of decline on steel-making communities, considering the various local, national and international initiatives to assist the affected areas and the way these initiatives have been devised and implemented. The authors conclude that none of these policies has satisfactorily resolved the crisis in the old steel producing areas and that a major crisis in these areas continues. Finally they discuss the social and political options open to these localities for the future.

The U.S. steel industry has a long history of being protected, first when it was an infant industry in 1791 and later as it became a mature industry and needed breathing room to allow it to restructure so that it could compete against more efficient foreign producers. In recent years the steel industry has resorted to antidumping laws to ward off foreign competition. In the first quarter of 2002, President Bush imposed tariffs of up to 30 percent on foreign steel producers in many countries, including those in East Asia. This tariff, which was the result of a finding that some foreign steel companies had dumped their steel on the American market, may be the first shot in what might become a trade war. A number of countries have filed protests with the WTO seeking compensation for the tariff and some countries have already taken retaliatory measures. These recent trade actions have a ripple effect throughout the East Asian countries, including Korea, and the world. For example, if the United States market becomes closed to the steel companies in the EU, those steel companies will have to try to sell more steel within the EU at a time when Chinese, Korean and Japanese steel companies will also be trying to penetrate the EU market to make up for lost American sales. This paper will explore some of these issues, with an emphasis on the effects that steel protectionism in the United States will have on their industries and their economies. A different version of this paper was first published in 2002 and was reprinted in 2009. The present version includes a bibliography on trade, including links to more than 100 studies on trade.