Bethlehem's Chairman Hank Barnette
Testifies Before Senate Steel Caucus
For Immediate Release
Public Relations Division
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WASHINGTON, D.C., November 30, 1998 -- The serious injury caused by unfairly traded foreign steel entering the United States is "becoming more severe as unprecedented levels of unfair and disruptive steel imports continue from every corner of the globe," said Curtis H. Barnette, chairman and chief executive officer, Bethlehem Steel Corporation, this afternoon to the Senate Steel Caucus Hearing held in the U.S. Senate Office Building.
Recalling his most recent testimony to the Congress on September 10, Mr. Barnette said that he and other industry leaders "warned that record levels of unfairly traded imports in the first half of 1998 posed an unprecedented threat to all that our world-class U.S. steel companies and employees have achieved in recent years. Unfortunately, our message today is that, over the past 80 days, the steel import crisis in the United States has become even more severe."
Comparing nine months of 1998 with last year's record import levels, finished steel imports are up 133 percent from key Asian producers and up 54 percent from Russia and two other nations of the Commonwealth of Independent States. Leading U.S. steel producers, including Bethlehem, and the United Steelworkers of America filed trade cases affecting hot-rolled carbon steel products from Russia, Japan and Brazil on September 30. On November 13, the International Trade Commission voted affirmatively in the preliminary determination on the question of injury. Further, on November 23, the Department of Commerce announced an affirmative preliminary finding of "critical circumstances" on the Japanese and Russian cases.
Mr. Barnette reminded the Caucus that "this is a supply driven crisis, in which an already enormous world steel overcapacity problem has been made much worse by major structural economic failures in Asia and the CIS. Today, we have over 300 million tons, or roughly one-third of total world steel capacity, desperate for new markets."
Calling the current crisis in steel "deeply troubling," Mr. Barnette said the situation is unusual in three ways:
Worldwide overcapacity and the failure of foreign producers to execute the difficult restructuring decisions made by the U.S. producers continues to undermine the steel industry and its workers. The problems caused by this overcapacity has been exacerbated by the recent global macroeconomic developments, from extreme currency shifts to severe economic downturns abroad.
The price of U.S. steel products has fallen dramatically during a period of relatively strong market demand, reflecting the impact artificially priced imports have had on the domestic industry's prices.
This serious import injury is threatening to destroy an American success story of revitalization of an industry that is once again the world leader in labor productivity and the application of state of the art steelmaking technology.
In addition to what the Administration can and must do now under existing law to address the steel trade crisis, Mr. Barnette told the Senators that "legislation is needed to cause our remedies against unfair trade to be more effective in these new economic conditions and to make sure those remedies continue to function effectively into the future."
The Bethlehem chairman pledged to continue public and private efforts to increase awareness of the industry's crisis. Characterizing these times as "extraordinary requiring extraordinary measures," Mr. Barnette said that the Administration "can and should do more than it has done to date to address this crisis. The ongoing efforts of the Senate and Congressional Steel Caucuses to help cause actions by the Administration should continue to be your highest and immediate priority," he concluded.