England steel braces for fresh Trump tariff blows

The British Steel Industry is preparing for a hammer blow from a fresh US rate after Downing Street cannot confirm that steel makers will be released from levies.

The British government launched a trade agreement with the US last month, where metal exports will be released from a sentence rate.

But negotiations about the final provisions of the agreement have not yet been concluded, triggering the concerns of British steel makers will now be subject to a new 50 percent import tax on aluminum and steel launched by Donald Trump last week, which will begin to take effect on Wednesday.

The Director General of British Steel, Gareth Stace, said: “President Trump has taken a hammer to be free of trade with great consequences for the steel sector in the UK and worldwide. This will not only prevent British exports to the US, but will also have a very distorporated effect on international trade, adding further import pressure to our own market.”

‘Make everything worse’

Chrysa Glystra, an economist in UK Steel, said the industry’s expectation was that the 50 percent tariff would apply until trade talks with the US had been completed.

He said: “You will assume we are in a better place than other countries because we have an agreement in principle with the US, but in some cases it actually makes everything worse because customers anticipate that there will be a zero tariff soon and therefore do not place the order with steel producers before that happens.

“Placing a rate of up to 50pc will only be a barrier. You might only see a total pause in the order to further notification.”

A government spokesman said that he was involved with the US about the implications of the latest tariff announcement to provide clarity to the industry.

Britain exported 165,000 tons of steel to the US in 2023, worth £ 388 million combined, according to the figure from UK Steel.