| This is a position paper, which investigates the steel industries of the United States and Japan. The focus is on researching the history historical background, policies, regulations, and production of steel in the two countries. The goal of the paper has been to support the basic premise that Japan has surpassed the United States in steel production, most likely because of policy mistakes made by the government and the steel companies. The chapters of this paper present information about the steel industry policies in Japan and the United States. They probe which country dominated the steel industry at different times and investigates their policies to understand which were most favorable for production and growth. The research introduced has shown that the Japanese steel industry began to expand their steel production capacity in the 1950s, and has been able compete effectively since then, with the American domestic steel industry. The Japanese steel industry has dominated trade, production, and new technology implementation for close to forty plus years. The United States in turn has tried to stem the flow of steel from Japan by limiting the amount of steel imported from Japan with policies to protect the American steel industry. This has not proved to be an effective approach, as the United States still has not been able to contend compete with Japanese production capacity levels, even though new technologies have helped the United States expand into new-areas of production such as minimills. |
