Number Five
Bush Flip Flopped on Steel Tariffs and Free Trade. He's for free trade, then he's for steel tariffs, and then he's back to being in favor of free trade again.
According to an article on FoxNews.com:
"Bush argued for free trade, then imposed three-year tariffs on
steel imports in 2002, only to withdraw them after 21 months."
There was a strong political motivation for these flip flops - Bush lost in Pennsylvania in 2000. Pennsylvania has a big steel industry, so the idea was to win votes in PA by helping out the steel industry. The problem, though, was that steel is a raw material for many industries in states like Ohio, and when steel prices went up because of the tariffs, those industries were hurt.
Ohio is even more important for Bush than Pennsylvania in the upcoming election, so suddenly what seemed like a smart political move turned out to be a very bad one and was reversed.
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