Steel Decision Could Firm Up GOP Political Foundation

Though fine-tuned to the complexities of a single industry, President Bush’s decision on steel tariffs could become a factor in national politics with control of Congress at stake this year and the White House in 2004.

Generally an advocate of free trade, Bush faced a dilemma on this issue. U.S. steelmakers argued that heavily subsidized foreign competition was victimizing their industry. If he disregarded them, the president might have paid a price politically in several states important to his chances for reelection.

His decision to impose a range of tariffs on some imported steel products did not give the domestic industry all the protection it had sought, but it pleased many of the industry’s allies--including the politically important steelworkers’ union--and bought the GOP a large measure of goodwill in those swing states.

Many Republicans asserted with satisfaction that Bush had in one stroke done more to help the industry than his Democratic predecessor had in eight years--a contrast they will undoubtedly drive home in steel-producing states such as West Virginia and Pennsylvania in upcoming elections.

“It’s clear that putting Bush on the side of steelworkers and U.S. jobs and working-class Americans is a political plus,” said Stuart Rothenberg, a Washington political analyst. “It’s a clear political win for Bush, to be able to go into those states, go to members of Congress and say, ‘Look what I did for you and your folks.’ ”

To be sure, there were critics of the steel decision. Some Democrats said Bush did not go far enough. Many Republicans would have preferred little or no action. But their objections were muted.

“Certainly what the president did could have been worse,” said Sen. Phil Gramm (R-Texas), an ardent free-trader. But the allegiance of Gramm’s state to Bush, former governor of Texas, is not in doubt.

The president stands to gain from Tuesday’s action in West Virginia, a traditionally Democratic state, where he scored an upset over Democratic candidate Al Gore in 2000 by capturing 52% of the vote. And Bush is seeking to wrest Pennsylvania, which Gore won with 51%, into the Republican column. Both states have been hit hard by the decline of the U.S. steel industry.

“Those West Virginians and Pennsylvanians are not unimportant to [Bush’s] political objectives in the longer haul,” said Thomas Mann, a scholar of the presidency and Congress at the Brookings Institution. For Bush loyalists, every state matters as the president seeks to build on his narrow electoral victory in 2000 after losing the popular vote.

The sensitivity of the steel issue in presidential politics was recognized in 1992, when Democratic presidential candidate Bill Clinton visited a steel plant in Weirton, W. Va., promised to keep foreign companies from selling cheap steel in the United States and won the state.

There was bitterness eight years later after Clinton pursued free-trade policies that allowed the overseas competition to continue. So in October 2000, GOP vice presidential candidate Dick Cheney showed up in the same city and declared, “If our trading partners violate trade laws, we will respond swiftly and firmly and enforce our laws.” Steel was not the only issue in the state at the time, but it was crucial--and Bush and Cheney carried the state by 40,000 votes.

The effect of Tuesday’s action on congressional politics is less clear. The issue is not likely to play heavily in the Senate because this year’s competitive contests lie outside the Midwestern and mid-Atlantic Steel Belt.

In the House, only a few dozen of the 435 races this year are expected to be truly competitive, and only some of those are in steel states. Bush’s action could boost the fortunes of Republican candidates in Maryland, Indiana, Ohio, West Virginia and Pennsylvania who have steelworker constituencies.

But some Democrats were gearing up to challenge Bush for failing to do enough for steel. Democratic operatives cited the candidacy of Ed O’Brien, a steelworker who is challenging Rep. Patrick J. Toomey (R-Pa.), as evidence that they could turn the argument to their benefit.

The steel decision also appeared likely to play a role in debate on a major trade bill moving through Congress. Last December, by a one-vote margin, Bush won House approval of the bill that allows him to negotiate trade deals on behalf of the United States. Under the bill, Congress would give up its right to amend trade deals the president may reach in the next few years and would be able only to approve or reject them in up-or-down votes.

The legislation is pending in the Senate, where it is expected to pass. But the House may be forced to vote again on the legislation after differences between the House and Senate versions are reconciled. If another House vote is taken, about three dozen Republicans from steel-producing states who provided crucial support for Bush’s trade bill in December would be able to point to the tariff decision to justify another vote for the president’s position.

“Politically, this will probably give some comfort to Republicans who want to stick with the administration,” said Bill Samuel, a lobbyist for the AFL-CIO, which opposes the trade bill.

Rep. Robert W. Ney (R-Ohio), who cast a difficult vote for the president’s trade bill in December, told reporters Tuesday that “we would have had a lot of trouble” politically if Bush’s steel decision had gone against the industry.

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Times staff writers James Gerstenzang and Janet Hook contributed to this report.