Making "Enemies:" Industry-State Subterfuge and the Social Construction of US Antidumping and Countervailing Duty Policy, 1960-1988

The few scholars who have directly studied the history of US "non-market economy" (NME) antidumping and countervailing duty policy explain its development as either an ideological relic of the Cold War or as a case of business politics. Statistical, historical, legal, and interview data indicate that the development of NME policy was not a result of Cold War ideology or business politics, but instead part of a larger political project by an incumbent US steel industry to receive relief from imports. Steel initially advocated for import quotas, but a semi-autonomous US state refused out of fear of foreign retaliation. The steel industry and the state used the discursive strategy of subterfuge to balance these competing interests.