Surging capacity in China and elsewhere has prompted the North American Steel Trade Committee (comprising America, Canada and Mexico and their country's steel firms) to estimate that the world's total annual steelmaking capacity will rise by 250m tonnes over the next five years, an increase of 25% that threatens a return to glut, and thus plunging prices, especially if Chinese demand falters.
In addition to holding the steel contract at One World Trade Center, DCM is putting up steel for 4 World Trade Center, a 72-story tower.
I'm the director of Cato's Herbert A. Stiefel Center for Trade Policy Studies, focusing on WTO disputes, regional trade agreements, U.S.-China trade issues, steel and textile trade policies, and antidumping reform.
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Bush-era trade quotas on steel demonstrate a secondary effect of trade restrictions.
The half tonne of rusted steel from One World Trade Centre was placed underground because it was too distressing to be displayed.
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Tommy Franks with a piece of steel recovered from the Trade Towers, she saw this great soldier's eyes well up with tears.
The international steel business consisted of export trade, rather than the ownership of assets in several countries.
The model of the jagged steel remains of the World Trade Center, which stands in front of the house, was one of his first works.
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It is discouraging, in this regard, that the current U.S. administration is complicit in ratcheting up trade barriers in steel, timber, textiles and farm products.
The real problem though is that domestic unions, the steel industry, and their trade lawyers in Washington insist on having their cake and eating it too.
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It lives on in the Cross of Steel made from the World Trade Center beams, placed on a Pentagon-shaped platform that rests proudly outside the Shanksville Volunteer Fire Department. (Applause.) That Cross of Steel is an enduring symbol of the steel and the spine of this region, and the spine of this country.
If two REITs are both run by managers who churn out great FFO growth, but one owns trailer parks and the other fancy office skyscrapers made of glass and steel, the latter will probably trade at a richer multiple.
And, in the messy reality of politics, steel may still hold the free-trade agenda hostage.
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Canadian officials, for example, said the exclusion of non-U.S. steel would violate the North American Free Trade Agreement, which lowered trade barriers among the U.S., Canada and Mexico.
Sticking to free-trade principles may mean losing some steel companies, but it need not mean abandoning their workers.
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And the White House can also help to restore the momentum of trade reform by reversing itself on the steel tariffs.
The furore about America's steel safeguards is another argument for clearer global rules about trade remedies.
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Mr Bush's steel tariffs have made them even more determined that these trade-remedy rules need to be revised.
The EU has also fought off Mr Bush's tariffs on imported steel, which were repealed in December after the World Trade Organisation deemed them illegal.
Economic weakness, especially if it is expressed in rising unemployment, will, however, make the Bush administration even keener to pander to domestic lobbies for trade protection, as it already has for steel and farms.
America's steel tariffs notwithstanding, rich countries impose low barriers on manufacturing trade with each other.
Still, the forces working to weaken the dollar today aren't likely to go away soon: U.S. accounting scandals, widening trade and budget deficits, George Bush's steel tariffs, terrorism fears.
And it was on hand at the early stages of rebuilding, as it won a contract to put up steel for the site's signature tower, One World Trade Center, in 2006.
However, I do not foresee a very strong dollar this year because the prospect of greater American mercantile pressure ahead of the presidential election should not be underestimated (the bill to impose quotas on steel imports was passed by Congress just before a large January trade deficit).
Indeed, last month a trade panel found that 11 countries' imports had harmed steel makers a first step to imposing sanctions.
Consider the difference between a traditional trade quarrel, such as a dispute over restrictions on steel imports, and the battle over hormone-treated beef.
Yet the suspicion is that such gambles lie beyond the talents of most steel managers, who have grown soft under the soothing influence of trade barriers and subsidies.
TPA, even the prospects for concluding global trade talks, are all linked to one decision: on steel.
ECONOMIST: Great stuff, but does it have the president's support?
On the trade front, not only did President Bush enact tariffs on steel, softwood lumber and shrimp, his administration regularly bashed Chinese export policies, as has the Obama administration.
Steel workers, as opposed to steel companies, can be helped in ways that do not interfere with free trade.
ECONOMIST: Why protecting American steel is such a rotten idea
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