US, UK end their 4-year-long dispute over aluminium and steel tariffs

A rift between the United States and the United Kingdom over aluminium and steel tariffs has finally come to an end as the former has agreed to lift the duties. On Tuesday, March 22, Anne-Marie Belinda Trevelyan, a British politician serving as Secretary of State for International Trade and President of the Board of Trade since 2021, officially said that both the countries reached a common term to remove the four-year-long aluminium and steel tariffs.

To resolve the dispute, the United Kingdom has accepted a condition that Chinese-owned steel companies in Britain must undergo annual audits to ensure no cheap Chinese steel supply to the US tariff-free.

Britain, to return the favour, has also agreed to withdraw retaliatory tariffs on US exports, including whiskey.

10 per cent tariff on British aluminium and 25 per cent on steel date back to the era of Trump administration, in a bid to safeguard the alleged national security threat due to the dumping of foreign metals – a move that outraged the British, Europeans, and other longstanding American allies.

Joe Biden also criticised Donald Trump for alienating America’s friends but was slow to undo the tariffs. Last year, President Biden reached a deal with the European Union, agreeing to drop the tariffs on EU metals.

Critics said all along that Trump’s steel and aluminium tariffs did little to address the real problem confronting American producers of steel and aluminium: overproduction by China. But the United States already shuts out most Chinese steel.