With winter coming, hopes have cooled that the Clinton administration would resolve the import-tariff problem to the satisfaction of all parties. The Dept. of Commerce will announce the final antidumping trade regulations in the next month or so. Steel importers, including service centers and wire producers, are becoming increasingly miffed at paying dumping duties for products that domestic producers either cannot or will not provide on time and in sufficient quantity. They have argued about this issue with their domestic suppliers since 1994. Domestic producers fear that importers will use the short-supply provision to pay less for imports over domestic goods.
Proponents believe they have bent themselves into a pretzel to satisfy the producers' worries.
Crane is chairman of the House Ways and Means trade subcommittee. AISI later said it only was replying to an SSCI initiative. Such a solution allows the U.S. to maximize jobs and production at home, short-supply proponents say. The proposal ensures that neither upstream nor downstream manufacturers would lose sales opportunities. The most notable of these mechanisms are changed-circumstance reviews and scope determination.