{"id":33261,"date":"2025-07-07T18:51:34","date_gmt":"2025-07-07T18:51:34","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/financialrush.com\/?p=33261"},"modified":"2025-07-07T18:51:34","modified_gmt":"2025-07-07T18:51:34","slug":"uk-officials-hopeful-steel-industry-will-avoid-50-us-tariff","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/financialrush.com\/?p=33261","title":{"rendered":"UK officials hopeful steel industry will avoid 50% US tariff"},"content":{"rendered":"<p> \n<\/p>\n<div>\n<p>Unlock the Editor\u2019s Digest for free<\/p>\n<p class=\"article__content-sign-up-topic-description o3-type-body-base\"><span>Roula Khalaf, Editor of the FT, selects her favourite stories in this weekly newsletter.<\/span><\/p>\n<p><iframe class=\"article__content-sign-up-iframe close\" scrolling=\"no\" id=\"signUpIframe\" data-prev-url=\"\/register\/in-article-sign-up?ft-content-uuid=7ba73c46-20dd-4837-b3ec-a18fd6c8b88a\"><\/iframe><\/div>\n<div id=\"article-body\">\n<p>UK officials are hopeful that the country\u2019s steel industry will avoid being slapped with a 50 per cent tariff by Donald Trump when a deadline expires on Wednesday for nations to negotiate tariff deals with the US president.<\/p>\n<p>London is locked in intensive talks with Washington to fully implement the \u201ceconomic partnership\u201d agreement signed by both sides on May 8. The accord offered a zero-tariff quota for UK steelmakers, but has not been agreed two months later.<\/p>\n<p>A spokesperson for Prime Minister Sir Keir Starmer on Monday said the government was working to get the deal finished \u201cas soon as possible\u201d but was unable to say when it would be done.<\/p>\n<p>However, two senior UK officials played down the risk that the current 25 per cent <a href=\"https:\/\/www.ft.com\/trump-tariffs\" data-trackable=\"link\">tariff<\/a> facing UK steelmakers would be raised to 50 per cent when Wednesday\u2019s deadline passed for other countries to conclude negotiations at the end of a 90-day pause on the \u201creciprocal tariff\u201d. Trump announced the measure on April 2. <\/p>\n<p>In a sign of the White House\u2019s determination to put pressure on countries to agree deals, Trump on Monday said he would impose <a href=\"https:\/\/www.ft.com\/content\/613678ac-2e61-436b-9d0f-2a8f85a20dee\" data-trackable=\"link\">tariffs of 25 per cent<\/a> on goods from Japan and South Korea from August 1.<\/p>\n<p>Last month he announced he was <a href=\"https:\/\/www.ft.com\/content\/8da4f9d5-1882-4527-9478-8fd9f20f2e4a\" data-trackable=\"link\">doubling<\/a> the global US steel tariff to 50 per cent, but exempted the UK from the increase, pending completion of negotiations. <\/p>\n<p>But he also warned that \u201con or after\u201d the July 9 deadline for reciprocal tariff deals he \u201cmay increase the applicable rates of duty to 50 per cent\u201d if the UK had not complied with relevant aspects of the economic partnership deal.<\/p>\n<p>Two senior officials with knowledge of discussions said they were confident the UK steel industry would avoid that worst-case scenario. <\/p>\n<p>\u201cI strongly believe we will not see the 25 per cent we currently have go up on July 9,\u201d one said, adding that the subject had been raised directly with US officials last week in talks in Washington.<\/p>\n<p>Another said the UK situation was complicated by the fact the US was negotiating with other relevant trade partners, adding that the \u201chard-pressed\u201d US bureaucracy needed more time to resolve the issues.<\/p>\n<p>UK trade secretary Jonathan Reynolds has disclosed that a US requirement for steel for \u201cmelted and poured\u201d in its country of origin in order to qualify for preferential tariff treatment is the key sticking point. At present, not all UK steel qualifies.<\/p>\n<p>Separately, a trade body representing steel users in the UK warned that ministers\u2019 moves to protect the steel industry from a glut of cheap international imports risked triggering shortages and higher prices for manufacturers.<\/p>\n<p>The International Steel Trade Association warned that a UK decision to impose additional tariffs on steel from countries including Vietnam, South Korea and Algeria <a href=\"https:\/\/www.gov.uk\/government\/news\/uk-introduces-new-trade-measures-to-support-steel-sector\" data-trackable=\"link\">last week<\/a> would damage \u201cports, transporters and all that handle and use steel\u201d.<\/p>\n<p>The intervention came after Reynolds overruled the UK Trade Remedies Authority \u2014 the body that advises government on trade defence measures \u2014 to take extra steps to defend against steel dumping.<\/p>\n<p>ISTA chair Julian Verden said Reynolds had \u201cignored\u201d the recommendations of user groups in favour of protecting the UK\u2019s producers, which he said had a \u201cvested interest\u201d in creating a monopoly to the detriment of industry and other consumers of steel.<\/p>\n<p>Andrew Gardner, director of procurement at Hadley Group, one of the biggest UK users of galvanised steel in construction and manufacturing parts, said limiting imports from Vietnam and South Korea would \u201cremove access to high-quality, lower-priced steel, potentially driving up costs and resulting in end users needing to rely on inferior quality steel\u201d.<\/p>\n<aside aria-labelledby=\"aside-label\" class=\"n-content-recommended--single-story n-content-recommended--inset\" data-component=\"recommended\">\n<p class=\"n-content-recommended__title o3-type-body-highlight\">Recommended<\/p>\n<div class=\"o-teaser o-teaser--article o-teaser--small o-teaser--stacked o-teaser--has-image js-teaser\" data-id=\"2c473393-35fb-479d-8bba-236a1a98087c\">\n<div class=\"o-teaser__image-container js-teaser-image-container\"><a href=\"https:\/\/www.ft.com\/content\/2c473393-35fb-479d-8bba-236a1a98087c\" data-trackable=\"image-link\" data-trackable-context-story-link=\"image-link\" tabindex=\"-1\" aria-hidden=\"true\"><\/p>\n<div class=\"o-teaser__image-placeholder\" style=\"aspect-ratio:2048\/1152\"><\/div>\n<p><\/a><\/div>\n<\/div>\n<\/aside>\n<p>But UK Steel, which represents producers including Tata Steel and British Steel, rejected ISTA\u2019s claims and said global steel prices were unsustainably low for UK producers. <\/p>\n<p>The government said it was \u201cworking to protect our [steel] industry from unfair competition\u201d. <\/p>\n<p>Reynolds \u201cconcluded it was in the public interest to reject the TRA\u2019s recommendation to ensure the effectiveness of the steel safeguard measure for domestic producers, alongside the need for security of supply\u201d, it added. <\/p>\n<\/div>\n\n<br \/><a href=\"https:\/\/www.ft.com\/content\/7ba73c46-20dd-4837-b3ec-a18fd6c8b88a\">Source link <\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Unlock the Editor\u2019s Digest for free Roula Khalaf, Editor of the FT, selects her favourite stories in this&hellip;\n","protected":false},"author":5,"featured_media":33262,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[23],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-33261","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-us","cs-entry","cs-video-wrap"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/financialrush.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/33261","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/financialrush.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/financialrush.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/financialrush.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/5"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/financialrush.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=33261"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/financialrush.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/33261\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/financialrush.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/media\/33262"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/financialrush.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=33261"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/financialrush.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=33261"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/financialrush.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=33261"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}