Changes to UK trade remedies are a welcome first step to tackling trade challenges

23 April 2025

The Chancellor and Secretary of State for Business and Trade have today provided a clear signal that fairness has to underpin our approach to global trade. With that in mind, the Trade Remedies Authority (TRA) has been directed to increase resourcing in its pre-application office, take a more proactive approach in trade flow monitoring and speed up the pace at which investigations are completed. 

Trade remedies, including anti-dumping, anti-subsidy and safeguarding measures are extremely complex tools that require a high evidentiary threshold, often take a year to implement and are highly resource intensive for industry to undertake.  

While trade remedies are an essential part of the toolkit to address unfair trade, there is an increasing recognition globally, including by the EU, that traditional trade remedies tools are increasingly unable to meet the scale of the challenge. This is particularly true in a steel context as a result of rising excess capacity, set to increase from 602 million tonnes (Mt) in 2024 to 721Mt by 2027, and increasing global barriers to trade, such as US tariffs. 

For example, dumping requires proof that an exporter is selling in the UK market at a value below what they are selling in their domestic market. But if prices are low in their domestic market due to oversupply or due to lower energy costs, exporters can still massively undercut our market without “technically” any wrongdoing. Therefore, an anti-dumping measure could not be applied in this situation. 

The EU has already set out clear plans as part of its Steel Action Plan to further strengthen its trade defences with measures that go further than traditional trade remedies tools and this is also needed in the UK. The UK’s steel safeguards are due to expire in June 2026 and cannot be further extended due to WTO rules. This is another example where UK industry can no longer use a traditional trade remedies tool.

UK Steel Director General, Gareth Stace, said:

“UK Steel welcomes the Government’s announcements on making the UK’s trade remedies system more proactive and accessible to industry. Trade remedies have a key role to play in defending UK industries at a time of heightened trade challenges.  

“However, we must also be cognisant of the fact that the global trade landscape has changed to the point where trade remedies alone will not suffice. For steel, global overcapacity and oversupply have risen to the point where they are keeping steel prices subdued in many parts of the world. Exporters are therefore able to undercut our market without necessarily dumping and the UK steel industry has seen its domestic market share drop to an unsustainable 35%.

“We look forward to working with Government on developing the long-term solutions that are needed to ensure a level playing field for steel companies when it comes to trade defence. It is essential that a replacement to steel safeguards is guaranteed and delivered as soon as possible.” 

Contact details

Louise Young, Campaigns and Engagement Manager, UK Steel 
07388 370176 | Lyoung@makeuk.org

Notes to Editors

Global excess capacity:

• Global excess capacity was estimated at 602Mt in 2024 and is forecasted to reach 721Mt by 2027 – equivalent more than 100x the UK’s production.
• Capacity expansions in Southeast Asia and the Middle East are continuing at an alarming rate – these are largely state-funded, mostly for high-emission blast furnaces and often do not correspond to domestic demand trends.
• Steel demand is weakening in key markets, notably China, translating into rising oversupply which is dampening steel prices and spilling over into other markets.
• Import pressure on the UK market is on the rise amid a weak demand environment. The import share in 2024 already increased to 65% from 60% in 2022. The sharpest import increases came from non-EU sources, mainly India, Vietnam, China, South Korea, Turkey and Algeria. Importantly, these are also countries that have seen significant increases in imports from China or are within China’s top 10 exporting destinations.
• Over two thirds of steelmaking capacity is in countries that have Net Zero targets later than 2060 or none at all.
  

UK Steel safeguards: 

• Safeguards are a type of trade remedies measure intended to address unexpected surges in imports that are damaging or threatening to damage domestic producers. Safeguards can take various forms but the most common is a tariff-free quota – this allows the continuation of tariff-free imports at the same level or higher as the period before the safeguard was introduced.
• The UK inherited its steel safeguards from the EU which introduced its own equivalent measure in 2018 principally to guard against import diversion from the US after the introduction of Section 232 tariffs by President Trump. This mechanism expires under WTO rules in June 2026.
• The UK is only partially shielded from trade diversion expected to occur as a result of President Trump’s new 2025 25% steel tariffs. Steel safeguard quotas have been liberalised every year and are now 22% larger than when they were first introduced in 2018. All while UK demand has contracted by 16%.
• Even a small proportion of surplus material ending up in the UK would completely overwhelm the UK steel market. Most of these imports will be of high-emission steel.

EU steel safeguards review:

• The Commission reviewed its steel safeguards, resulting in tariff-rate quotas becoming more restrictive. The amendments took effect on 1 April.
• The Commission has reduced the liberalisation rate from 1% to 0.1%, limiting the amount of steel that can be imported into the EU tariff-free.
• Additionally, countries will no longer be able to use the entire volumes of unused quotas of other countries, including those of Russia and Belarus. The 'carry-over' mechanism, which allowed countries to roll over unused quotas to the next quarter, has also been eliminated for categories with high import pressure and low consumption.

EU Steel Action Plan:

• The European Commission unveiled its bold Action Plan for Steel and Metals on 19 March, which will deliver comprehensive measures to protect and strengthen the European steel industry. A proposal is set to be announced before the end of the year on a long-term measure to maintain highly effective protection of the EU's steel sector once the current safeguard expires in mid-2026.

About UK Steel: UK Steel is the trade association for the UK steel industry. It represents all the country’s steelmakers and most downstream steel processors. 

The UK steel sector:   

• Produced 4Mt of crude steel in 2024 and supplied 35% of the UK's annual demand of 8.1Mt
• Employs 36,800 people directly in the UK and supports a further 46,000 in supply chains
• The median steel sector salary is £39,245, 24% higher than the UK national median and 33% higher than the regional median in Wales, and Yorkshire & Humberside where its jobs are concentrated
• Directly contributes £1.7 billion to UK GVA and supports a further £2.2 billion
• Directly contributes £3.1 billion to the UK’s balance of trade
• 96% of steel used in construction and infrastructure in the UK is recovered and recycled to be used again and again