British steel quotas should be halved, says Tata
Britain's protective steel quotas should be cut in half to protect the domestic industry from becoming a "dumping ground" for global overcapacity, warns Russell Codling, commercial director at Tata Steel UK.
The comments were made during a hearing in the Business and Commerce Committee this week, which Callanish watched.
"We need half of the quotas that exist at the moment.[The UK]needs to take the same large-scale actions as the EU and the US are doing. Otherwise, we will simply remain unprotected as a global dumping ground for excess steel," he said.
He noted the record level of China's exports in 2025, which, according to him, will amount to 119 million tons of finished steel products.
Codling described how the US administration had "taken action" against imports by imposing a 50% tariff on all countries except the UK, and said he understood the move. "The US recognizes that the steel industry is an essential strategic industry for the country, and they decided they needed to Take measures to protect against imports and oversupply worldwide," he added.
He stressed that other countries are currently taking action as well, including Canada, Mexico, Brazil and South Africa. Meanwhile, the EU has proposed to reduce import quotas and introduce a 50% tariff rate beyond quotas starting from July 1.
"The protective measures expire at the end of June this year, and the UK steel industry will fully face global oversupply around the world," Codling said. He added that these precautions were "ineffective on their own" and were developed "at a time when steel markets were much larger than they are today."
"The UK government has two months to save the British steel industry, because this is a fatal outcome for the industry as a whole and all its supply chains," Codling warned.
He said that the UK is "still recycling", while others have already begun to act, which is fraught with "excessive analysis, overestimation and eventually getting something that either does not meet the purpose of protection the last piece of this industry, because there is no steel company there." in the UK, it really makes some kind of profit. All of them are teetering on the edge and trying to maintain their positions. It won't be for long."
Without reducing the volume of protective quotas, the domestic industry will not be able to meet the demand for steel in the UK. "Otherwise, we will have to think about how we respond to our own cost base, which will affect communities."