Europe Formalizes Provisional Steel Tariffs from the Start of February

Some call them safeguards, some call them protectionist barriers, and some love them and some hate them.
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Few measures divide like import tariffs.
We have seen it in the U.S. While Europe would claim its own measures are a reaction to the impact of imports following the U.S. Section 232 action, the reality is domestic European producers — led by their trade group, the European Steel Association (EUROFER) — are very much in favor of the European Union’s decision to put in place permanent safeguard measures on steel imports (in place of the provisional ones which have been applied since July 2018).
The new measures differ from the provisional arrangements in part because they were arrived at after careful monitoring of imports in the intervening period. As such, they are so are more targeted, at some 26 product categories, Pan European Networks reports in its publication Government Europa. The tariff of 25% applies to imports that exceed a certain threshold and are designed to ensure sufficient supply is available to consumers without allowing the market to be swamped by excess material, severely depressing prices.
A report in Steel Times quotes Eurofer saying imports have surged by 12% last year, making the need for an effective defense mechanism essential.
Axel Eggert, director-general of EUROFER, is quoted as saying “For every three tonnes of steel blocked by the US’ section 232 tariffs, two tonnes have been shipped to the open EU market.”
The measures do appear to partially reflect consumers concerns, EUROFER says that the final measures include an immediate “relaxation,” increasing the size of the quota by 5% (calculated on the base years of 2015-2017), with a further 5% relaxation in July and another 5% in July 2020, subject to review. Steel demand in 2019 is expected to increase by just 1%.
But, not surprisingly, not everyone is in favor of the measures.
European auto manufacturers association ACEA has called the measures protectionist. It has said that steel exports to the United States have only dropped slightly, and so little extra steel has been diverted to Europe. EUROFER puts the figure at an increase from 20% import penetration historically to 25% import penetration during the monitored period last year – hardly the “significant volumes” touted by UK Steel Director General Gareth Stace.
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If the U.S. reaches a sufficiently attractive trade deal that it decides to remove the Section 232 measures – unlikely, but a possibility – to what extent will Europe remove its new measures?
We will see. In an increasingly protectionist world, barriers are quick to be adopted and slow to be removed.