Britain acted as the ringleader in blocking attempts to regulate cheap Chinese steel entering Europe, despite warnings that the continent’s steel industry was in crisis, the European Steel Association (Eurofer) has said.

Charles de Lusignan, a spokesman for Eurofer, which represents steel production in the European Union, said the organisation had argued for the lifting of the lesser duty rule, which prevents increased tariffs being placed on cheap imports to the EU from China.

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“The fact is that the UK has been blocking this. They are not the only member state, but they are certainly the ringleader in blocking the lifting of the lesser duty rule,” he told the BBC’s Today programme.

“The ability to lift this was part of a proposal that the European commission launched in 2013, and the fact that the UK continues to block it means that when the government says it’s doing everything it can to save the steel industry in the UK and also in Europe, it’s not. It’s not true.”

De Lusignan’s comments on Friday came as it emerged that Tim Morris, Tata Steel’s head of public affairs, warned the Welsh affairs committee in February that the chancellor, George Osborne, was pushing for China to get market economy status at the World Trade Organization, which would protect Beijing from the highest EU trade barriers, and that this could exacerbate the continent’s steel crisis.

“Tata Steel, alongside the steel industry in Europe in general, is deeply concerned about Europe apparently sleepwalking into potentially an even greater steel crisis by the granting of market economy status to China,” Morris told MPs, according to a transcript of the hearing.

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Speaking from Mumbai after a meeting with Tata Steel chiefs on Wednesday, the Labour MP Stephen Kinnock, whose Aberavon constituency includes the Port Talbot plant, accused the government of being “in hock to China” and said senior figures at the company had expressed frustration at the lack of action from ministers to support the steel industry.

The business secretary, Sajid Javid, will visit south Wales on Friday for the first time since the crisis began earlier this week to reassure the 4,000 steelworkers at the Port Talbot plant that the government would use all “ministerial, official and diplomatic levers” to help save their jobs, including actively seeking out buyers for Tata Steel’s British assets.

Osborne said on Friday that the government was doing “everything that is practicable and possible” to allow tougher tariffs on cheap steel.

Responding to the accusation that import taxes were being blocked, Osborne said Britain was working with other countries to make sure tariffs were in place on imports of unfairly cheap steel from countries such as China.

Speaking at the Asda Supercentre at Trafford Park in Manchester, he said: “First of all, it’s a really difficult time for the steelworkers and their families, and we are doing everything that is practicable and possible to help those families, to help communities affected, such as Port Talbot and Scunthorpe, and to make sure that there is a long-term future for Britain’s steel industry.

“There’s a global crisis in steel; you go to all these other countries, they have got similar problems because the price has fallen.”

It is understood that senior Whitehall officials have contacted Liberty House, a steels and metals group with an annual turnover of nearly £5bn, which is in the process of buying sites in Scotland. Private equity companies, which would be likely to undertake radical cost-cutting measures, are also being approached.

Speaking on Friday morning, de Lusignan said: “European steel and UK steel is viable, so there is no fundamental reason why it shouldn’t go on for the foreseeable future. But action should have been taken already. We find ourselves discussing a problem that should have never arisen and it would not have arisen had we modernised trade defence instruments when we had the chance.”

The attempts by the European commission and other member states to crack down on China dumping cheap steel on European markets contradicts the assertion by the Ukip leader, Nigel Farage, and other Brexit campaigners that the EU has been a major factor in the decline of Britain’s steel industry.

Although the EU levies retaliatory tariffs on unfairly traded steel, European trade defences are far lower than other economic areas. Whereas the EU imposes a tariff of up to 16% on dumped Chinese cold rolled steel, the US recently fixed duties at 266%.

Ahead of Javid’s visit, the Unite Wales secretary, Andy Richards, said the business secretary needed to “commit to ensuring British steel can compete on a level playing field” by promising to drop his opposition to higher EU tariffs and “honour the commitments to help with energy costs which were quietly watered down by George Osborne in his budget”.

Richards called for Javid to promise to back British steel with financial support. “He needs to look workers in the eye, not just at Port Talbot, but at sites across Tata Steel from Shotton and Llanwern, to Rotherham and Corby, and say ‘your government backs you’,” Richards said.

“A failure to do so will leave workers feeling his visit to Port Talbot is nothing more than an empty PR stunt and intensify the need for David Cameron to take personal control in securing a future for the UK steel industry.”