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Economic Commentary

The Steel Trigger Price Mechanism

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The trigger price mechanism (TPM), implemented early in 1978, was devised to detect imports of steel at unfairly low prices and trigger the administrative relief provided by law. In 1977, the U.S. steel industry was facing tough import competition that compounded its problems of aging, inefficient plants, high wage rates, and low capacity utilization. U.S. steel imports had jumped to a record level of 19.3 million tons, 1 million tons higher than the previous record established in 1971.

05.17.1982EC 5/17/1982

The views authors express in Economic Commentary are theirs and not necessarily those of the Federal Reserve Bank of Cleveland or the Board of Governors of the Federal Reserve System. The series editor is Tasia Hane. This work is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial 4.0 International License. This paper and its data are subject to revision; please visit clevelandfed.org for updates.

Suggested Citation

Anderson, Gerald. 1982. “The Steel Trigger Price Mechanism.” Federal Reserve Bank of Cleveland, Economic Commentary 5/17/1982.

This work by Federal Reserve Bank of Cleveland is licensed under Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial 4.0 International