CLEVELAND — The Bush administration's bold foray into steel protectionism ended prematurely Thursday, the apparent victim of two major miscalculations: a worse-than-anticipated backlash by steel consumers, and a faster-than-expected retaliation by the rest of the world.
When President Bush imposed the tariffs almost 21 months ago, his advisors saw them as a way to assist an industry in need, shore up support for Republicans in the Steel Belt and advance America's trade agenda, all at the same time.
In the end, they made hardly anybody happy.
As many jobs were lost in industries that buy steel as were saved in mill towns like Cleveland, analysts say. The administration undercut its own credibility in the broader push for free trade while alienating other nations.
And steelworkers ended up endorsing a Democrat for president anyway.
"They're not heroes to the downstream steel users because they screwed them for 21 months. And they're not heroes to the steel producers because they gave them something and then took it back," said Brink Lindsey, director of trade policy studies at the conservative Cato Institute. "It turned out to be messy, if not self-defeating politics."
Faced with growing opposition from domestic steel consumers and imminent retaliation by foreign trading partners, Bush declared his mission -- strengthening the industry -- accomplished and lifted the tariffs 15 months ahead of schedule.
Yet to some industry insiders and analysts, the president's announcement sounded more like an admission of defeat, a view shared by several workers in Cleveland, the steel-making center of Ohio.
Although several ailing companies have been acquired by new owners and shuttered plants have been brought back on line, steelworkers said the industry's restructuring was far from complete. Other companies remain mired in bankruptcy, and their prospects may be poorer without the safety net of steel tariffs.
"It really galls me," said Tony Panza, a training coordinator at the giant Cleveland Works steel mill. "It took us two years to get any help. We lost thousands and thousands of jobs and a lot of plants just to get the president to finally do what he knew was right. Now look at his resolve."
Even among those industries that buy large amounts of steel, which generated much of the pressure to rescind the tariffs, there was a sense that the president's action had come too late to save companies caught in a severe price squeeze.
