Treasury Secretary Paul O’Neill told a foreign policy group last week that he disagreed with the Bush administration’s decision earlier this month to impose tariffs on imported steel and that the move would cost more jobs in the United States than it would save, people who heard him speak said Friday.
In off-the-record comments after a dinner speech at the Council on Foreign Relations in New York on Wednesday, O’Neill said he was sticking to his position that imposing tariffs risked the nation’s interests as the world’s leader in promoting free trade, they said.
In expressing his opinions about the steel issue, O’Neill was giving voice to the unease of free trade advocates and others, including Republicans, about the administration’s policy.
But in doing so before more than 200 people–even with the caveat that his remarks were not intended for public consumption and that they represented his personal opinion–O’Neill flirted with openly distancing himself from a sensitive policy decision.
According to two people who heard O’Neill’s remarks in person and another who viewed them on a simultaneous Internet broadcast, the treasury secretary strongly emphasized his belief that the administration’s decision risked more jobs in steel-using industries than it would protect among the long-ailing steelmakers.
Three people who heard the remarks and said they were sympathetic to them said that O’Neill, in response to a question, stressed that he had no intention of trying to undermine the administration’s policy.
Michele Davis, O’Neill’s spokeswoman, said his comments were consistent both with Bush’s policy and with O’Neill’s own judgment that tariffs alone would not solve the steel industry’s problems. She said O’Neill supported temporary tariffs that would give the industry time to slim down and become globally competitive.
Claire Buchan, a spokeswoman for the White House, said, “Secretary O’Neill shares the president’s view that the steel industry needs time to do necessary restructuring.”