BRITAIN has been a centre of steelmaking since Henry Bessemer developed a method to mass-produce the metal cheaply in the 1850s. British mills, close to rich seams of coal and deposits of iron ore, cornered the global market within two decades. But the days when Britain’s furnaces turned out over 40% of the world’s steel, exporting it to every continent, are long gone. On March 29th Tata Steel, Britain’s biggest producer, said it planned to sell or shut down its British operations, prompting growing pleas for a government bail-out. The state of the global steel industry, and Britain’s now-peripheral position in it, mean that those calls should be resisted.

Steel production in Britain has more than halved since its peak in around 1970, to some 12m tonnes a year. In 2015 British steelmakers contributed less than 1% of world supply. As British steel mills have fallen quiet, world production has expanded rapidly, almost doubling between 2002 and 2014.

Most of the increase is accounted for by China, which has more than quadrupled its production since 2000. In 2015 China produced over 800m tonnes, or about half of the global total. But its flagging economy has led state-owned steelmakers to sell their growing surpluses on foreign markets. Exports have soared to 112m tonnes a year, overwhelming markets everywhere and leading to a collapse in steel prices (see chart). Prices do not look as if they will soon return to levels that would make most steelmaking profitable in Britain or in much of Europe. The OECD, a rich-country club, reckons global capacity exceeds demand by up to 600m tonnes a year. The Chinese central government plans to restructure its loss-making steel industry, which is probably responsible for half of this excess capacity. But that will encounter resistance and take time.

The commoditised steel products turned out at Tata Steel’s main plant at Port Talbot in South Wales have been particularly vulnerable to these trends. The company’s announcement this week that it had decided to reject an “unaffordable” turnaround was painful (Tata Steel provides 15,000 of the 24,000 remaining jobs in Britain’s steel industry) but it was not unexpected. Other steel companies, too, have been cutting capacity and jobs. In October Redcar steelworks, owned by SSI, a Thai firm, went bust. Some 2,200 employees lost their jobs. Later that month Caparo Industries, with 1,700 employees, called in the administrators. Tata itself slashed 2,250 jobs in October and January.

Most of the world’s steelmakers have suffered from China’s steel surplus, but Britain’s have taken a disproportionate hit. American firms have been helped by their government’s willingness to impose tariffs—of almost 500% on some forms of steel—as well as by cheap energy from fracked natural gas. Other European states have taken a less laissez-faire approach when steelmakers have tried to cut capacity, adding to the pressure on their British counterparts. British companies export around 30% of their wares to the continent.

British producers face all the problems of other European steelmakers and more of their own. Their energy costs are the highest in Europe, partly because of levies to pay for climate policies. The strength of the pound last year hammered Britain’s exports, while steel mills in the euro area benefited from the euro’s weakness.

The clamour for intervention is now growing louder. The British Chambers of Commerce, a business lobby group, and Unite, the country’s largest trade union, both want the government to guarantee the steel industry’s future. Jeremy Corbyn, the leader of Britain’s Labour Party, and even several Conservative MPs have called for Tata Steel’s British assets to be nationalised if a private buyer does not emerge.

Some buyers have already bid for parts of the industry making specialised products that are less susceptible to tumbling market prices than Port Talbot’s output. In November 333 jobs were saved at the Caparo division that produces steel tubes for the car and aerospace industries. On March 24th two steelworks in Lanarkshire were bought by Liberty House, a metals group. Tata is in talks with Greybull Capital, a turnaround specialist, to buy its Scunthorpe site, which turns out rail lines and steel for construction.

There is no such happy end in sight for Port Talbot, Britain’s biggest mill. To tempt a private buyer it would have to be able to pay its way eventually. Even if anti-dumping duties are imposed on Chinese steel, there is little prospect of that. In 2013 Tata opened a new blast furnace at Port Talbot, at a cost of £185m ($266m). It has spent £2 billion covering its British plants’ losses and now estimates that they will need at least another £2 billion just to break even.

Any bail-out by the state would run into trouble. The European Commission allows governments to help steelmakers regain competitiveness by, for example, cutting energy taxes. But it bans them from offering aid to rescue or restructure ailing steelmakers. The EU has ordered Belgium’s government to recover €211m ($239m) in aid given to Duferco, which operates steel mills in Wallonia. It is also investigating whether Italy acted illegally in spending €2 billion to support the Ilva steel mill in Taranto. Unless the British government wishes to break European rules, and indemnify any future buyer, its ability even to tide over Port Talbot if it thinks a private buyer could in fact be found is limited.

There are other things the government could do, such as cutting energy tariffs. That might not make enough difference, though, and in any event would clash with the national target of cutting carbon emissions by 80% by 2050. The state’s energy should now be concentrated not on propping up a waning business but on helping steelworkers move onward and upward.

Located near busy Cardiff and Swansea, Port Talbot’s 4,300 workers are luckier than those in other declining industrial towns around Britain. But finding jobs in Cardiff’s thriving business-services sector, for example, will be difficult for former steelworkers. The government will need to spend serious money retraining them, helping them into new employment and improving transport links to big cities. Spending to keep the plant itself in business would just prolong the inevitable.