Britain’s steel industry reacted with fury this evening to Donald Trump’s decision to impose tariffs on UK exports of the metal to the US.

Gareth Stace, director of trade body UK Steel said the US administration had “fired” the starting gun for a trade war. Experts fear the move could put the UK’s steel sector, which has only just started to recover from a ­protracted slump, at risk, threatening as many as 31,000 jobs in some of the UK’s most deprived areas. Five of the UK’s “big six” steel makers export to the US: Tata, British Steel, Liberty, Sheffield Forgemasters and Outokumpu.

Wilbur Ross, US commerce secretary, announced the decision to push ahead with tariffs of 25pc on steel and 10pc on aluminium just hours before a temporary exemption for the EU, Canada and Mexico was due to elapse at 12:01am in Washington on Friday.

The tariffs will make EU steel less competitive in the US market. The UK exports roughly 350,000 tons of steel a year to the US worth more than £350m. This represents 7pc of the country’s total production.

Industry voices also warned of a secondary effect on UK producers, as cheap Chinese steel is dumped on world markets after being cut off from US buyers. A flood of steel produced by state-subsided manufacturers in China could trigger a crisis in Britain’s steel making industry, which is still recovering from a similar situation in 2015.

View more!

Mr Stace called for the EU to swiftly introduce “safeguard” measures to “shield against diverted trade swamping the European market”. Tony Brady, of workers’ union Unite, said the tariffs were “a blunt, short-sighted instrument”.

Mark Carney, speaking at a meeting of central bank staff and ministers in Whistler, Canada, this evening said the US should be focusing on trade in services, rather than goods. The Governor of the Bank of England said that trade deficits in both the US and UK would be half their current size if the same progress had been made on freeing up trade in services as in goods.

Liam Fox, the Trade Minister, meanwhile told the same meeting that he could not rule out retaliatory tariffs. The EU said it will pursue a complaint about the US tariffs with the World Trade Organisation. It added that the move was not the way to do business “between long standing partners, friends and allies”.

Jean-Claude Juncker, the president of the EU Commission, said: “It’s a bad day for world trade.” He added that the EU had “no choice” but to pursue a WTO complaint and place “additional duties on a number of US imports”. These duties on US goods are ­expected to include a range of politically sensitive US goods such as Kentucky bourbon and Harley-Davidson motorcycles. Many of the targeted goods are produced in parts of the US that are likely to be hotly contested in the country’s forthcoming midterm elections.

Canada meanwhile said it was looking at putting tariffs on US whiskey, ­orange juice and other food products, while Mexico responded with retaliatory tariffs on imports of US pork, grapes, apples and flat steel. The tariff moves weighed on stock markets, with the US blue-chip Dow index down more than 250 points, or 1pc, on Wall Street.

France’s president Emmanuel Macron and the Chinese regime have lent their support to the WTO, but the US administration is increasingly hostile towards the body. Mr Trump has called the WTO a “catastrophe”.

A UK government spokesman said it was “deeply disappointed” by the US decision saying the UK and EU, as close US allies, should be “permanently and fully exempted” from the US measures.

View more!

The Government said that potential damage to UK firms and defence from the tariffs had been “made clear” to the US government “at the highest levels”.

Tata Steel, which employs 7,000 workers in Wales, said it had been and would continue to “work closely with our customers on potential product ­exclusions”. It noted that the “vast majority” of the products it exports to the US cannot be made by US steel companies. Such products include wide strip, battery quality, hot rolled material and some certain packaging steels.

The move impacts EU exports worth €6.4bn (£5.6bn), and dashes hopes for a last minute stay on the import taxes in order to allow a permanent resolution to be negotiated. An 11th-hour additional temporary extension that covered the EU, Canada and Mexico, had been granted in April.

View more!

Canadian prime minister Justin Trudeau responded to the tariffs, saying: “We have to believe that at some point, common sense will prevail.”

“Unfortunately, the actions taken by the US government do not seem to be headed in that direction,” he added.

These concerns were echoed by Emmanuel Macron. “Economic nationalism leads to war,” Mr Macron said.

On Wednesday, China said it would take “resolute and forceful” steps if the US enforced an additional set of tariffs on the world’s second largest economy, following a row over the theft of US ­intellectual property.

US credit ratings agency Moody’s said that the tariffs risked damage to the US economy. The move may also “invite retaliatory measures that hurt certain US exporters”, it added.