{"id":1059875,"date":"2026-06-30T15:26:23","date_gmt":"2026-06-30T15:26:23","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/1059875\/"},"modified":"2026-06-30T15:26:23","modified_gmt":"2026-06-30T15:26:23","slug":"steel-quota-deal-for-eu-trade-partners-means-more-pain-for-china-euobserver","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/1059875\/","title":{"rendered":"Steel quota deal for EU trade partners means more pain for China \u2013 EUobserver"},"content":{"rendered":"

China will\u00a0bear the brunt of\u00a0new steel quotas designed to reduce the EU\u2019s steel imports by 47 percent, after the EU Commission set out plans to give preferential treatment to the countries with which\u00a0the bloc has a trade pact.\u00a0<\/p>\n

On Tuesday (30 June), the commission said<\/a> that\u00a0half of the EU\u2019s annual import quota \u2013 set at 18.3 million tonnes from 1 July \u2013 \u2018has been reserved exclusively for preferential trading (FTA) partners, with the remaining half available to all trading partners without discrimination, including FTA partners.\u2019\u00a0<\/p>\n

That will hurt China,\u00a0which accounted for 9.9 percent of the EU\u2019s steel imports in 2025, but does not have a trade agreement with the bloc.\u00a0At 17.2 percent and 11.5 percent,\u00a0Turkey\u00a0and South Korea\u00a0were the top two steel-exporters to the EU\u00a0and are among 13 countries that have trade agreements with Brussels and have had their quotas reduced by only a third.\u00a0<\/p>\n

The other countries to benefit are India, the UK, Indonesia, Egypt, Brazil, Switzerland, North Macedonia, South Africa, Argentina, Ukraine and Singapore.\u00a0<\/p>\n

\u201cThe commission is putting in place the practical arrangements needed to ensure that the EU\u2019s steel measure operates effectively from day one,\u201d said EU trade commissioner, Maro\u0161 \u0160ef\u010dovi\u010d.\u00a0<\/a><\/p>\n

\"\"<\/a><\/p>\n

When the commission proposed the\u00a047-percent reduction in steel imports last\u00a0November, after officials said that they would\u00a0seek\u00a0to broker \u2018country-specific\u2019 quotas with their trading partners, including\u00a0the UK. <\/p>\n

The UK government,\u00a0which is in the process of\u00a0nationalising\u00a0British Steel, is also holding talks with Chinese commerce minister Weng Wentao this week on its own steel duties.\u00a0<\/p>\n

Commission officials say that the 18m\u00a0tonne\u00a0import ceiling is\u00a0a bid to protect the bloc\u2019s steel industry from chronic global oversupply, primarily from China.\u00a0Imports\u00a0in excess of\u00a0the quota will face\u00a050-percent\u00a0duties, up from 25 percent under the\u00a0previous\u00a0rules.\u00a0<\/p>\n

It points to global supply of steel<\/a> of\u00a0over\u00a0620m\u00a0tonnes\u00a0\u2013 and which is estimated to reach 721 million\u00a0tonnes\u00a0\u2013 more than five times the EU’s annual steel consumption.\u00a0EU officials say that\u00a0the EU\u2019s steel industry is only functioning at 67 percent capacity, and that the new import controls aim to increase this to 80 percent.\u00a0<\/p>\n

Without the quotas, the European steel industry, which is worth\u00a0\u20ac152bn per year and accounts for around 293,000 jobs,\u00a0is unable to compete, say EU officials.\u00a0\u00a0<\/p>\n

Steel\u00a0was also a major sticking point in the EU\u2019s trade negotiations with the United States.\u00a0President Donald Trump has imposed 50percent tariffs on EU steel, prompting a 34 percent drop in EU steel exports to the US last year. <\/p>\n

However, the\u00a0EU has demanded that these tariffs be dropped as part of the trade agreement approved by EU lawmakers earlier in\u00a0June\u00a0which sets a 15 percent tariff on most EU exports.\u00a0<\/p>\n

\"Bernd<\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"China will\u00a0bear the brunt of\u00a0new steel quotas designed to reduce the EU\u2019s steel imports by 47 percent, after…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":834488,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":"","_share_on_mastodon":"0"},"categories":[5174],"tags":[217083,2000,299,5187,219220,273573,219218,273571,219219,273572],"class_list":["post-1059875","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-eu","tag-typedefinedterm","tag-eu","tag-europe","tag-european","tag-identifier4338","tag-identifier4399","tag-namechina","tag-nameeu-trade","tag-termcodechina","tag-termcodeeu-trade"],"share_on_mastodon":{"url":"https:\/\/pubeurope.com\/@uk\/116839762519356750","error":""},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1059875","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=1059875"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1059875\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/834488"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=1059875"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=1059875"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=1059875"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}