UK revises some steel quotas, Turkey loses exemption for Category 4 TRQ

The UK’s Trade Remedies Authority (TRA) has announced its final decisions following three reviews of steel tariff rate quotas (TRQs) under the country’s safeguard measures. The decisions will take effect from April 1, 2026.

The TRA has decided to maintain existing TRQs for:

• metallic coated sheets (category 4),
• non-alloy and other alloy quarto plates (category 7).

The authority concluded that UK producers manufacture competing products in these categories and that removing safeguards could harm the domestic steel industry.

For category 12A (alloy merchant bars and light sections), the TRA has opted to partially revise the quota. Three out of eight commodity codes have been removed from the TRQs, after the investigation found no evidence of UK domestic production for those specific products.

Turkey loses exemption, faces country-specific quota

The TRA also reviewed the Developing Country Exemption status for Turkey in category 4 steel products. Imports from developing countries are given exceptions to TRQs if the goods imported are less than three percent of the total imports of that product. The TRA found that imports from Turkey exceeded the threshold, leading to the recommendation of 24,413 mt country-specific quota for Turkish products for the fourth quarter quota period between April 1 and June 30.