The U.S. semiconductor industry faced a similar challenge in the mid-1980s. Now, the U.S. industry is the unquestioned world leader, but in 1986 seven of nine U.S. producers had been driven out of production of basic memory semiconductors by savage Japanese dumping. The U.S. government intervened to halt dumping. If the government had not acted, however, it is possible that U.S. companies would have been driven out of the industry with major economic, technological, and employment losses. Unfortunately, more than a decade later the threat of dumping remains real.
Supercomputers are perhaps the highest of high- tech products.
These sophisticated computers are capable of complex calculations that predict weather patterns, design weapons and perform other complex tasks. To make sales in the United States and around the world, the Japanese companies were willing to offer deep discounts, some approaching 100 percent, to take sales from Cray. Colo. After an investigation, anti-dumping duties of 454 percent were imposed on NEC and 173 percent on Fujitsu. Making the best product on the market is simply not enough under these conditions. Even before the recent controversy, steel has always been the favorite whipping boy of many critics of anti-dumping laws.