Writes Jacob D. Steelman, Jr.: ”I found your article in the Mises Daily interesting. Back in the late seventies I was appointed by my company to be a representative in an industry group exploring protectionism for the copper industry. I remember the first major meeting we had of executives of our company to decide whether or not to participate in this process. There were 20-30 managers and executives there. We went around the table with each person giving his view on participating or not - each speech evoked supporting comments from all the other attendees. When they came to me - a young lawyer still somewhat naive in corporate matters - I voiced my opposition citing the failed policies of protectionism. I argued that we would be better off spending our time lobbying for reduced regulation and reduced taxation on the our industry. When I was finished you could have heard a pin drop - no comments in support and no comments against. ”The group decided to participate in the protectionist project of the industry. The industry hired a large PR firm, two large law firms and other support. Within weeks of the organizational meeting very emotional articles began to appear in the press and TV about the plight of copper miners and their families. Large hearings were held in Tucson for industry executives who flew in for their testimony and flew out after they were finished. The testimony was scripted by the lawyers to make sure that each witness said the correct thing to support the case for trade sanctions against the foreign imports. Sanctions were granted - to little avail as the world price of copper continued to drop as plastics in automobile manufacturing re-placed copper and fiber optic cable replaced copper cables in the telecommunications industry. ”Curiously while the government was trying to provide protection for the industry the EPA was waging a war against the industry and in my view helped to drive much of the industry overseas with its extreme environmental and land use planning regulations. During that time I recall a meeting with EPA regulators who made the comment that there was no place in the United States for a non-ferrous industry. The industry ended up overseas primarily in Chile (owned by the state-owned company CODELCO) and some other isolated places in the world and has retrenched in the US. ”Years later one of the company executives who had voted for participation in the industry protection project admitted to me that it had been a mistake to participate in the protection project and that the industry should have concentrated its efforts on reducing regulations and taxes on the industry. Unfortunately for the company and the industry such revelations came much too late to revitalize our industry or save our company.”
