UK TRA recommends restricting countries’ access to residual quotas on steel imports

The British Trade Remedies Authority (TRA) has recommended introducing restrictions on the share of total (unallocated) quotas that can be used by one exporting country under the current system of protective tariff quotas (TRQs). This is stated in the message of the British government.

In March, the trade body expanded the scope of the TRQ review. After reviewing UK Steel’s data and input from a number of stakeholders, the TRA proposes to impose restrictions on countries to use the residual quota in the following categories:

• Category 4 (metallic coated sheet): 40%
• Category 7 (non-alloy and other alloy quarto plates): 40%
• Category 13 (rebar): 40%

“The TRA has determined that steel demand has changed both in the UK and globally, which has put significant pressure on the UK steel industry, justifying a change in quotas,” the statement said.

The department also proposed other changes to the distribution of tariff quotas:

• the “carry-over” mechanism, when unused quotas can be used in the next quarter, should be canceled;
• countries with a separate quota should no longer have access to the remaining quota in the last quarter. Quotas for developing countries excluded from this measure will not be reallocated.

According to TRA Chairman Nick Baird, the agency has listened to the concerns of the UK steel industry and has worked quickly to recommend changes to the allocation of steel import quotas to help protect the local industry from the destabilizing effects of global overcapacity.

The restrictions should come into effect on October 1, 2025, to give importers time to adapt. The agency also recommended canceling the carryover of unused quotas from July 1 this year.

Stakeholders can submit their comments until May 26. After reviewing these comments, the TRA will make a final recommendation to the Secretary of State for Business and Trade.

At the same time, the industry association UK Steel said that the TRA’s recommendation was inadequate given the scale of the challenges faced by the British industry.

They also noted that the agency did not meet UK Steel’s requests, such as slowing down the pace of quota liberalization since July and canceling some of the sanctioned Russian and Belarusian quotas that had previously been redistributed to other countries. The EU was able to make these changes to its safeguard measures, while the UK legislation is more restrictive.

In January of this year, the UK lifted safeguard measures on imports of rolled steel products. The review was initiated last year at the request of Tata Steel UK. The anti-dumping measures against imports of cold-rolled flat products from Russia and China remained in place.