Specialty steelmakers ask for more protection.

The Reagan Administration was asked to extend for three years the trade barriers that have protected the specialty steel industry from competitive imports since 1983. The steelmakers said conditions that led to trade barriers against specialty steel imports have not changed, and they fear a flood of subsidized imports into their weakening domestic market if controls are allowed to expired as planned July 19. “Despite commitments to reduce or eliminate their subsidies, foreign governments continue to subsidize their specialty steel producers,” Richard P. Simmons, chairman of an industry advisory committee and chief executive of Allegheny Ludlum, said at a news conference. In July, 1983, President Reagan imposed four years of quotas and tariffs.