The Commerce Department recently put limits on machine-tool imports fr

I’m in agreement with the above poster.

“Substantial inventories of foreign made machine tools were stockpiled in the US.”

The analyst is assuming that because fewer foreign machine tools will be imported from these 2 countries, the domestic producers of machine tools will essentially “fill in” the opening in the market.

If D is true, there could be stockpiled foreign machine tools that could make it less likely that domestic producers will actually have this “opening” in the first place. People may continue to buy the foreign machine tools that are sitting in inventory.

Again, we are looking for the best answer that weakens the likelihood that the domestic producers will sell more at home in the near future.

(A) discusses a bill that may or may not be passed at some indeterminate point in time.


The fact provided by (D) seems to most weaken the prediction that domestic U.S. producers will sell more machine tools at home in the near future.

Also notice that the last sentence begins with “as a result of these restrictions.”

Thus, the prediction is not simply that the domestic producers will sell more machine tools at home. The prediction is that this fact will occur AS A RESULT OF the import restrictions placed on the two foreign countries.

If there are substantial foreign inventories built up in the U.S., it seems less likely that the import restrictions will have the effect of an increase in domestic producer sales.

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