NAFTA/TRADE DEALS/TRUMP AS PRESIDENT: “President Trump suggested on Tuesday [2-13-18] that the United States was likely to impose restrictions on imported metals, reviving the prospects for a continuing investigation whose future has been called into question amid months of pushback and delays.
Meeting with a bipartisan group of lawmakers, the president said such restrictions would help save struggling steel companies from foreign competitors that ‘dump’ low-priced metal on American markets… The White House had billed the meeting as a listening session to let lawmakers air concerns about pending actions on aluminum and steel imports, as well as Mr. Trump’s infrastructure plan that was proposed on Monday and current trade measures like the renegotiation of the North American Free Trade Agreement… But the measure also has plenty of critics, who fear that such restrictions amount to a protectionist grab by metal makers and will raise prices for steel and aluminum. They argue that because the metals are widely used to make other products, other industries — including automobile manufacturers and food packagers — would suffer.
That pushback, which has garnered the sympathy of many pro-trade Republicans, appears to have turned a trade action that the White House initially viewed as relatively straightforward into a more extended affair.”
-Ana Swanson, “Trump Tells Lawmakers He’s Mulling Limits on Imported Steel,” The New York Times online, Feb. 13, 2018