Sir, - It would be a grave mistake for the EU and other steel-producing countries to impose their own sanctions on US trade in retaliation for President Bush's bizarre 30 per tariff on steel imports (Editorial, March 7th).
Far better to mobilise the full apparatus of the World Trade Organisation to resolve the dispute - and launch a propaganda campaign on American public opinion.
This would make plain that while there are 160,000 steel workers, the object of the President's largesse, fully 12 million people work in steel-consuming industries (machine tools, cars, oil, white goods etc.) that will be forced to pay 30 per cent more for steel than their foreign competitors.
A recent study shows that a tariff of 20 per cent would result in 9,000 steel jobs saved but 74,000 people thrown out of work elsewhere - a ratio of one to eight. Furthermore, the tariff will mean higher prices for every consumer product, local or imported, that contains any steel. In the meantime, the steel industry - in the absence of the competition it fears - will have no incentive to become less flaccid.
The American people may not care about the squeals of European outrage, but once they realise the scam that is being played on them by their own government, they will not stand for it. - Yours, etc.,
TONY ALLWRIGHT,
Killiney,
Co Dublin.