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UK Steel Tariffs: Government Will Protect British Mills. Too Bad About Every Factory That Needs Steel to Survive.
The UK is consulting on new steel tariff plans after warnings from manufacturers who rely on imported steel. The Silicon Review asks: when the government protects one industry by punishing another, is that leadership or just picking winners? The UK government is consulting on steel tariffs. The plan sounds simple. Protect British steel mills from cheap imports. Keep domestic production alive. Save jobs in Scunthorpe, Port Talbot, and Rotherham. There is just one problem. Every tariff on imported steel is a tax on every British factory that buys steel. And there are a lot of those factories. Let us do the math. The UK steel industry employs about 32,000 people. The UK manufacturing industry that uses steel employs nearly 2.7 million people. That is roughly eighty-four manufacturing workers for every steelworker. The government wants to tax the eighty-four to save the one. The consultation was announced after warnings from manufacturers. Construction companies, car makers, appliance manufacturers, and engineering firms all use steel. They have been buying from overseas because domestic steel is sometimes more expensive, sometimes lower quality, and sometimes simply unavailable in...
