Europe<\/a> including the UK, where a 25% tariff applies.<\/p>\nThe US opened a new consultation on what products should be on the inclusions list on 15 September, with a deadline of 29 September.<\/p>\n
The EU steel industry said the consultation was clearly \u201cto expand, not to cut\u201d the list of products and was part of a wider intention to review the list three times a year.<\/p>\n
Luisa Santos, the deputy director general at BusinessEurope, the confederation of European industry organisations, said the relationship with the US was \u201cbecoming quite turbulent\u201d because of the US ability to add products to tariff buckets.<\/p>\n
\u201cThe problem now is that the US is making a strange interpretation of the deals, increasing the list of derivatives. It is not just with us; it is with everyone.<\/p>\n
\u201cIt could be a motorbike that is now hit, or a table with a small bit of metal on it or window frames.<\/p>\n
\u201cThe issue is if we still have a number of things that are not clear, if you have one side expanding through these lists of derivatives, it is very difficult to claim we have certainty.\u201d<\/p>\n
The UK government, which secured its lower steel tariff before a deal with the EU, has said it is seeking clarification from Washington about what extra steel products will be affected.<\/p>\n
Fearing another wave of redundancies in a sector already hit by overcapacity and cheap foreign imports, the Community trade union and British Steel said they wanted the UK\u2019s industrial sector to sign a pledge backing the country\u2019s steel sector.<\/p>\n
\u201cWith the industry facing unprecedented challenges, the pledge seeks to galvanise support for UK-made steel and reinforce the long-term resilience of the sector, its workforce, and the infrastructure it sustains,\u201d the two organisations said.<\/p>\n
Eurofer, the European steel trade representative body, said: \u201cThe latest developments make even more evident the need for a strong new trade measure to preserve not only the viability of the EU steel sector but EU manufacturing as a whole, and the millions of quality jobs they sustain in Europe.\u201d<\/p>\n
Steel tariffs went up from a punitive 25% to 50% in June. It was part of Trump\u2019s attempt to revive the US industry but also to ringfence it not just against Chinese imports but also products that include steel, be they stainless steel sinks, kettles or cranes.<\/p>\n
The German MEP and chair of the European parliament\u2019s influential international trade committee, Bernd Lange, said the derivative list was already \u201creally harming a lot of industries\u201d including the motorcycles sector.<\/p>\n
He told how he had recently visited a motorcycle factory in Germany, where he learned the owners were unable to produce a definitive paper trail for the quantity of steel and aluminium used in their vehicles, down to nuts and bolts that could have an element of Chinese steel in them.<\/p>\n
Under the rules the tariffs are payable on the value of their steel and aluminium content.<\/p>\n
\u201cThey know they are between 30% and 50% but because they are unsure, they declare 50% because otherwise they are in danger of getting tariffs of 200%,\u201d Lange said in reference to customs penalties for non-declaration of all goods subject to duties.<\/p>\n
He told MEPs that the new tariff regime and the prospect of the inclusions of products expanding meant it was not easy to \u201cexplain to the workers\u201d that the EU-US deal was a good one.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"The EU steel industry, already reeling from Donald Trump\u2019s 50% tariffs on imports, is bracing itself for further…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":458212,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[5174],"tags":[2000,299,5187,1699],"class_list":{"0":"post-458211","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-eu","8":"tag-eu","9":"tag-europe","10":"tag-european","11":"tag-european-union"},"share_on_mastodon":{"url":"https:\/\/pubeurope.com\/@uk\/115282725104865222","error":""},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/458211","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=458211"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/458211\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/458212"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=458211"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=458211"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=458211"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}