## Facts

- Steel imports into the United States increased sharply from 1958 to 1968, largely from Japan and the European Communities, prompting domestic economic and national-security concerns.
- Congress considered legislation imposing mandatory steel import quotas, but the Executive Branch viewed quotas as potentially retaliatory under international trade rules, inflexible, and harmful to foreign relations.
- Executive officials, including the State Department, pursued a diplomatic approach seeking voluntary export limitations by foreign steel producers rather than legally binding quotas or formal trade restrictions.
- Foreign producer groups sent letters committing to voluntarily limit steel exports to the United States for a specified period.
- Consumers Union sued federal executive officials, challenging the legality of the Executive’s role in bringing about these voluntary restraints; domestic steel interests intervened.
- The district court resolved the case on cross-motions for summary judgment, rejecting Consumers Union’s challenge and issuing declarations that the Executive’s conduct did not conflict with the Constitution or the Trade Expansion Act of 1962.
- The parties filed consolidated cross-appeals; as framed on appeal, the dispute centered on whether the Executive’s actions amounted to an unlawful regulation of foreign commerce.

## Issues

1. Whether the Executive Branch’s efforts to obtain voluntary export restraints from foreign steel producers constituted a regulation of foreign commerce reserved to Congress under Article I, Section 8, Clause 3.
2. Whether the Executive’s conduct was foreclosed or preempted by the Trade Expansion Act of 1962’s framework for import restrictions.

## Decision

- The D.C. Circuit affirmed the district court to the extent it declared no conflict between the Executive’s conduct and the Foreign Commerce Clause or the Trade Expansion Act of 1962.
- The court treated the challenged conduct as diplomatic efforts to encourage voluntary undertakings by foreign producers, not the unilateral imposition of binding import quotas or domestic legal obligations.
- The court rejected the claim that the Trade Expansion Act displaced informal diplomatic initiatives that have trade effects but do not operate as statutory or treaty-based trade restrictions.

## Legal Principles

- Executive action that uses diplomatic engagement and persuasion to induce voluntary conduct by foreign private actors may be characterized as foreign-affairs activity rather than domestic regulation of foreign commerce.
- The Foreign Commerce Clause does not necessarily bar the Executive from pursuing foreign-policy measures that affect trade where the Executive does not impose enforceable legal restrictions on imports.
- The Trade Expansion Act of 1962 provides authority and procedures for certain formal trade measures, but it does not, without clear language, prohibit executive use of informal, nonbinding arrangements that do not create domestic legal duties.

## Conclusion

The D.C. Circuit upheld the Executive Branch’s facilitation of voluntary steel export restraints, concluding that the actions were not an unconstitutional usurpation of Congress’s foreign commerce power and were not foreclosed by the Trade Expansion Act of 1962.


Consumers Union of the U.S., Inc. v. Kissinger, 506 F.2d 136 (D.C. Cir. 1974)