The UK’s Trade Remedies Investigations Directorate (TRID) has recommended to the UK government that the safeguard measures on some steel products should be terminated on June 31 amid insufficient UK production, while the measures on certain other steel products, including HRC, CRC and rebar, should be extended for three years.
The steel product categories TRID recommended for revocation based on insufficient UK production, no increased imports or no serious injury are: metallic coated sheet, tin products, non-alloyed merchant bars and light sections, stainless bars and light sections, non-alloy and other alloy wire rod, angles, shapes and sections, rails, non-alloy and other cold finished bars, non-alloy and other alloy quarto plates, large welded tubes and non-alloy wire.
Commenting on the recommendation, the trade association UK Steel stated that the proposal to remove measures on certain products is “a hammer blow to the UK steel sector” and needs to be urgently rethought. “The UK will become a magnet for huge volumes of steel imports, it is beyond worrying to consider the damage this could do to the UK steel sector and its long-term viability. The coverage of the measures is designed to protect the viability of an entire industry, not individual production lines. All steel products ultimately start life in the same blast furnace, removing protection on half of steel products will fatally undermine that whole operation,” UK Steel said. According to the trade body, the UK government must decide to extend all the steel safeguard measures for another three years, anything else would be hugely damaging to the UK steel sector.