The UK faces a race against time to prevent Donald Trump’s swingeing new 50 per cent tariffs on steel hitting an already beleaguered critical industry.
The US president sent shockwaves through the global economy when he announced on Friday that he would raise the tariffs from 25 per cent to “further secure” the industry.
“We’re going to bring it from 25 percent to 50 percent, the tariffs on steel into the United States of America, which will even further secure the steel industry in the United States. Nobody is going to get around that,” Trump told steel workers on a visit to a Pennsylvania plant.
He later confirmed on his Truth Social platform that the change would be “effective Wednesday, June 4”.
A UK-US trade deal unveiled with much fanfare earlier this month should have exempted Britain from steel tariffs – but it has yet to be implemented.
Ministers now face a scramble to ensure the agreement with the US is in place before Wednesday.
The government is urgently seeking clarification from the US on what the latest announcement means for the UK, the Independent understands.
Business secretary Jonathan Reynolds is also set to meet his US counterpart Jamieson Greer in a bid to secure an agreed timeline to lift the tariffs.
But the face-to-face talks, after an OECD trade ministers summit in Paris, are thought to be scheduled for Wednesday, raising the prospect of an eleventh-hour showdown.
Earlier this month President Trump hailed the trade agreement with the UK as a “great deal for both countries”, while the prime minister said the move would “boost British businesses and save thousands of British jobs” and deliver on his promises to protect carmakers and save the UK’s steel industry.
Under its terms, levies on steel and aluminium were to be reduced to zero.
However, a general 10 per cent tariff for other goods would remain and Britain agreed to scrap its tariff on ethanol coming into the UK from the US.
But the Conservative leader Kemi Badenoch said the UK had been “shafted” as she contrasted the amount UK business would have to pay with their costs before President Trump came to power.
Last month MPs were forced to hold an unusual Saturday sitting to approve emergency plans to save British Steel’s Scunthorpe blast furnaces by taking control away from its Chinese owners.
Although the new law stopped short of nationalisation, the government conceded it was “likely” British Steel would have to be taken into public ownership as Sir Keir warned the UK’s economic and national security was “on the line”.
At the time, he said his government was “turning the page on a decade of decline, where our manufacturing heartlands were hollowed out by the previous government. Our industry is the pride of our history – and I want it to be our future too.”
On Trump’s new 50 per cent steel tariff announcement, a government spokesperson said: “The UK was the first country to secure a trade deal with the US earlier this month and we remain committed to protecting British business and jobs across key sectors, including steel.
“We are engaging with the US on the implications of the latest tariff announcement and to provide clarity for industry.”
