Britain breathed a sigh of relief on Wednesday after it was granted a carve-out from President Trump’s 50 percent tariffs on steel and aluminum imported to the United States, while the rest of Europe fumed that it was now paying twice as much.
The exemption for British exports was granted because the country had already agreed to the framework of a trade deal, which was announced to much fanfare on May 8. But Britain’s steel industry is still frustrated that it faces 25 percent tariffs because the pact has yet to be put into place.
And Britain still faces the prospect of 50 percent tariffs on those goods starting July 9 if London has not ironed out a final deal with Washington.
“This is a time-bound vote of confidence for U.K. steelmaking and our industry’s ability to supply to the U.S. market, but in many ways also creates further uncertainty, which is disruptive,” said UK Steel, an industry trade group.
Some customers in the United States are still ordering semifinished steel from Marcegaglia Stainless Sheffield in Britain’s Midlands, said Christian Bruggmann, the company’s chief operating officer. Britain is better positioned than producers from other countries that have to pay the higher tariff, but the latest wrinkle “creates more uncertainty,” he added.
Some of Marcegaglia’s steel is processed through Sweden and Italy and would be subjected to the 50 percent tariffs. And company executives worry that Europe will be swamped by exports from countries like China and Indonesia, increasing competition for European steel. “The competition will be even worse,” Mr. Bruggmann said.
But across Europe, other countries were angry that tariffs on steel and aluminum shot up.
“Most of the 3.8 million tons of E.U. steel exports to the U.S. are now under a de facto import ban: at a 50 percent blanket tariff,” Axel Eggert, the director general of the European Steel Association, said in a statement. “Even Europe’s highest-quality, most competitive steel products will be priced out.”
He warned that the 27 million tons of steel that was already heading to the United States is likely to be redirected at least in part to Europe and dumped on the market, which is what happened in 2018, when Mr. Trump imposed tariffs during his first term.
“We are being flooded by cheap foreign steel,” said Mr. Eggert, who pushed for both sides to negotiate a solution. “Without swift action, we will not just be underwater — we will drown.”
Germany, which is Europe’s largest steel-producing country and made up 6 percent of the United States’ total steel imports in 2024, will be particularly hard hit by the higher tariffs. The German Steel Federation, which represents the country’s leading steel producers, called the tariffs “a new level of escalation in the trans-Atlantic trade conflict,” warning that the consequences would present a “massive burden for our industry.”
The federation added that Germany, like the rest of Europe, now risks facing competition from an influx of steel from other countries that lost access to the U.S. market because of the tariffs. The European Union already imports one out of every three tons of steel used in production within the bloc.
German aluminum producers expressed similar concerns about the threat of cheaper imports from other supplier countries flooding the European market.
The steel industry is an integral part of Germany’s traditional heavy industry, which includes automotive and machine production. Dependent on steel, production of heavy machinery dropped 6 percent in April from the same month in 2024, and VDMA, which represents Germany’s producers of heavy machinery, blamed the decline on the tariffs and the uncertainty they have created.
Stanley Reed reports on energy, the environment and the Middle East from London. He has been a journalist for more than four decades.
Patricia Cohen writes about global economics for The Times and is based in London.
Melissa Eddy is based in Berlin and reports on Germany’s politics, businesses and its economy.
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