There is too much steel being made. Changing technologies and new materials mean less steel in products like cars. Steelworks are closing all over America. They are in trouble in Europe, some surviving only on covert subsidy and the collapse of the euro.
This is all largely "factual", description, though there are a number of elements which do convey some evaluation. Hence the amount of steel making going on is assessed negatively as being excessive/too much, and the situation for steel makers in Europe is negatively assessed as 'trouble'. There would seem to be some potential for this "excessive" amount of steel making to be taken as an implicit indication of incompetence by the steel makers - they might be seen as having blundered in setting the wrong production targets. Yet interestingly this potential inference is not strongly supported by the text which follows. In fact, evidence is provided which could be taken as suggesting the production over-runs were unavoidable or at least couldn't have been forseen by even the most competent managers. Thus we are informed that the problem is with "changing technologies" and a resultant need for less steel in cars. As well, we are told this is a world-wide problem - it's happening in the US and Europe - so it certainly would be unreasonable to single out the British company and its managers for blame.
"Covert subsidies". The term "covert" carries with it strong negative connotations - to act covertly is to is in some way to be dishonest or to dissemble, thus the following from the Cobuild Bank of English,
Nationalist street demonstrations and deepening Unionist suspicions are intensifying the need for talks all round with everybody if the peace process is to continue. But the cause of lasting peace will not be helped if ministers fan hostility and suspicion with covert meetings followed by double talk.
This negatively does not, however, always apply (also from the Bank of English),
PC Seymour, 31, called for all policemen to be given covert body armour. They use body protection in the States," he said. `You need it all the time, not just for certain calls. You have to be prepared."
From my reading position, however, the connotation of "subterfuge" and "deceit" is so strongly fixed that I would interpret this as indicating that the European's have been acting dishonourably/deceitfully in their use of such devices. I would therefore analysis this as explicit negative JUDGEMENT, though once again the dividing line between an explicit and an implicit realisation is a fine one. (That is to say, I take "covert" here to be inscribing the negative Judgement rather than to simply implying it.)
