AISI CHAIRMAN BLASTS CREDIBILITY OF CITAC REPORT;
CHARGES LOBBY GROUP WITH "SHAMEFUL MISREPRESENTATION"

Washington, D.C. – The Chairman of the American Iron and Steel Institute (AISI) blasted the Consuming Industries Trade Action Coalition (CITAC), a special interest lobby group that supports trade law weakening, for distorting the facts regarding the impact of President Bush's Section 201 steel tariff remedy, in a report CITAC released yesterday.

"While CITAC claimed job losses, their own data revealed that employment actually increased by 229,000 jobs in U.S. metal consuming sectors after the President imposed his steel tariff relief under Section 201," stated Dan DiMicco, Chairman of AISI and Vice Chairman, President and CEO of Nucor Corporation. "The actual job increase is according to CITAC's own numbers and Bureau of Labor Statistics data.

"The shameful misrepresentation of fact by CITAC and others needs to stop," DiMicco said. "This latest attempt to ignore reality continues to drive a wedge between parties that should be dealing with the fundamental problems facing all manufacturing. The real problems include both trade and non-trade challenges and, in the trade area, they involve foreign government currency manipulation, real trade protection abroad, foreign government subsidies and other forms of foreign government intervention in markets. Those who would pursue a narrow agenda based on distorting the facts about the President's Steel Program are sorely misguided. It is time to focus on the issues that are central to all U.S. manufacturing. The Administration has asked America's manufacturing sector to do just that."

The American Iron and Steel Institute is a non-profit association of North American companies engaged in the iron and steel industry. The Institute comprises 33 member companies, including integrated and electric furnace steelmakers, and 140 associate and affiliate members who are suppliers to or customers of the steel industry. For more news about steel industry initiatives, visit http://www.steel.org/.

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