On 27 July 1989, President Bush fulfilled a hastily-made campaign promise and approved a renewal, for two and a half years, of the protectionist system of "voluntary restraint agreements' (VRAs) which had sheltered the US steel industry since the early 1980s. He had little choice: despite the predominance of free trade sentiments within his own administration, and regardless of a revival in the fortunes of the steel sector, the proponents of an aggressive, 'strategic trade policy" were in the ascendant.