US hikes tariffs on Chinese steel, China

The US has slapped a 522% tariff on steel imported from China amid ongoing claims the world's biggest steel producer is distorting the global market by cheaply dumping its excess supply abroad.

The US hiked its import duty from the previous 266% for cold rolled steel in response to China’s refusal to co-operate with anti-dumping investigations, accusing steelmakers from the People's Republic of selling products below market prices.

In response, the Chinese Ministry of Finance said "continue to implement a tax rebate policy on steel exports" to help an ongoing restructuring program, with the country having pledged to cut out 100-150m tonnes of annual production over the next five years.

European producers have complained about being undercut by China's steel dumping, but the EU has only imposed provisional tariffs on China of 16% for cold rolled steel.

UK manufacturers on Wednesday called for the government and the EU to quickly follow the US lead.

“The United States has quickly identified the problem with China dumping steel and imposed effective and robust trade barriers," said Gareth Stace, director of UK Steel.

"The EU has been slower and the result is we’re still haggling over tariffs and action to prevent unfairly traded Chinese steel. Britain and the EU need to stop treading on egg shells and take decisive action following America’s impressive lead.

“China has promised to work to tackle global oversupply but, instead, continues to dump cheap steel on the world market. If any demonstration were needed that China isn’t accepting its responsibility to work with the rest of the world steel industry to address this problem then this is it.”