The Bush administration also moved to impose a 29 percent tariff on imports of softwood from Canada, which provided some $6 billion worth of the lumber used mostly in housing construction to the U.S. market last year.

Despite publicly releasing the targeted products, Pascal Lamy, the trade commissioner for the European Union (EU), said the EU will rely on the trade dispute appeals process under rules of the World Trade Organization (WTO), which will take up to 18 months to complete. Washington's tariffs on steel are slated to last for three years.

"There is a lot of frustration in European public opinion," Lamy said, reflecting the concerns of capitalist rulers in various countries on the continent. "If we wait for the judge for 15 months, we [will be seen] as crazy or naive or weak. But it is a political decision on our side. I want to stay within the international rules," he added.

EU officials reiterated they are rapidly moving to implement their own measures to prevent a surge of imports that would have otherwise gone to the United States. Three steel trusts control nearly all production in Europe.

Countries affected by the protectionist steps by both Washington and the EU around steel are mostly Third World countries and workers states in Eastern Europe and the former Soviet Union.

U.S. officials, casting the United States as a victim of unfair trade, said the announcement by the EU of a potential list of retaliatory products was "disappointing" because "we're still in a consultative phase at the WTO."

Canada's international trade minister called Washington's tariffs on lumber "obscene" and also said the government there would take up the issue with the WTO. U.S. officials claim Canada subsidizes the lumber industry by charging very low rates for timber cut on government land.  
 
 
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