(March 19): The UK government said it will hike tariffs on steel imports and cut import quotas, as it seeks to boost the country’s ailing domestic steel industry amid fierce global competition.
Quota levels for steel imports will be reduced by 60% compared to current arrangements from July 1, and tariffs on steel imports outside of the quota will increase to 50% from 25%, the Department for Business and Trade said in an e-mailed statement.
Britain’s steel sector has been in long-term structural decline, as domestic producers have struggled to compete with cheaper imports, especially from China, while also being hit by headwinds such as US President Donald Trump’s tariff wars. The government took control of British Steel last year when it faced the prospect of closure, a collapse that risked thousands of jobs and would’ve left the UK as the only Group of Seven nation without primary steel-making operations.
“Making steel in the UK is vital for national security, critical infrastructure and the wider economy,” Business and Trade Secretary Peter Kyle said in the statement. “We are closing the decades-long chapter of destructive de-industrialisation and committing instead to strengthening and sustaining Britain as a steel-making nation.”
The UK’s move follows similar decisions by the European Union, Canada and the US to raise tariffs on steel imports, which have also been spurred by concerns about subsidised Chinese imports. As part of its wider steel strategy, the UK government said it wanted up to 50% of steel used in Britain to be made in Britain, compared to 30% currently.
“With global markets distorted by overcapacity and subsidy, a clear and ambitious domestic strategy is exactly what is required,” said Gareth Stace, director general of UK Steel, the trade association for the industry. “The government’s bravery in taking the required measures represents a real shift in the culture of Westminster from protecting the ideology of free trade at any cost, to defending critical industries and national security.”
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The GMB Union applauded the government’s move, saying, “this administration has done more for UK steel than any Government for many, many years,” Charlotte Brumpton-Childs, GMB national secretary, said in a statement.
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