🔗 Share this article

The European Union have announced plans to mirror Donald Trump's import duties on steel, increasing to double taxes on imports to 50% in a action described as "an existential threat" to the sector in the UK.

Unprecedented Crisis for UK Steel Industry

Given that eighty percent of UK steel shipments going to the EU, this change creates the UK steel industry's largest crisis, according to the lobby group speaking for the industry.

European Commission Measures and Rules

In its plan submitted to the European parliament this week, the EU executive additionally suggested reducing the existing quota for tariff-exempt steel and obliging foreign suppliers to disclose where the steel was melted and poured to stop Chinese producers sneaking products in through other countries.

The European steel industry faced potential collapse – we are protecting it so that investments can be made, decarbonise, and regain competitiveness.

Overhaul of Current Framework

These measures are designed to supersede a import framework that has been functioning for the past seven years and which is due to expire in 2026 and is now seen as ineffective. Inaction could have been "catastrophic" for the industry, one EU official stated.

Sector Response and Concerns

However, Gareth Stace, head of the industry body UK Steel, stated Brussels increasing duties would pose "the biggest crisis the British steel sector has encountered".

There were calls for the government to "acknowledge the urgent need to put in place domestic protections to protect" the British steel sector – which is still reeling from a twenty-five percent tariff imposed by the US recently – from the risk of vast quantities of world steel diverted away from American and EU markets.

This surge in foreign steel "might prove terminal for numerous steel companies.

Union and Government Calls

Alasdair McDiarmid, representative at labor union Community, stated the proposed changes represented "an existential threat" to British steel production.

Labor and business representatives called on the UK government to begin talks urgently with the European Union on country-specific duty-free quotas, pointing out that the United Kingdom was now the European Union's No 1 export market.

Industry Background

Industry leaders in the EU have repeatedly cautioned for months that their own industry faces being "eliminated" through the increased duties on American market shipments combined with rising energy prices and low-cost Chinese imports.

Steel on in both the UK and EU is considered a essential sector, providing basic materials in products ranging from skyscraper structures, renewable energy equipment and transport infrastructure to household appliances and cutlery.

Adoption and Future Actions

These proposals must be agreed by member states and the European parliament, with the European Commission president urging member states and MEPs to act fast in support of the proposal.

If the plan is ratified, the EU will reduce its current duty-free quota by 47% to 18.3 million tons a year, a level previously recorded in 2013. It will impose a fifty percent tariff on foreign steel exceeding the limit and require nations exporting into the EU to declare where the steel was melted and poured to prevent circumvention of the measures.

Exemptions and Global Partnerships

These European nations will be exempt from import limits or tariffs due to their close trading relationship in the EEA, the EU has said.

In addition to these measures, the European Union is seeking a "steel partnership" with the US to ringfence their national industries from excess production.

The European Union needs to act now, and decisively, before all lights go out in large parts of the European steel sector and its value chains.