Bush lifts steel tariffs after WTO authorizes $2.2 billion in retaliation

President Bush terminated the Section 201 steel tariffs on December 4, 2003, six days before the WTO was scheduled to formally adopt its ruling that the tariffs violated U.S. commitments, and eleven days before the EU was authorized to impose $2.2 billion in retaliatory tariffs on U.S. exports. U.S. Trade Representative Robert Zoellick announced the reversal after the WTO Appellate Body upheld the ruling that steel imports had not surged in the period required to justify safeguard protection. Trump later bypassed this WTO constraint entirely by invoking national security authority under Section 232 rather than the safeguard mechanism Bush had used.