The UK’s Minister of State for Trade, Chris Bryant, has suggested his government is closing in on a deal on steel with the EU that would see both sides avoid punitive trade restrictions introduced to shield their domestic industries from over-capacities.
It comes as the Labour-led UK government pushes on with its economic “reset” with the European bloc, despite an impending leadership challenge that has left Prime Minister Keir Starmer grappling with his biggest political crisis since his landslide victory in 2024.
Speaking to Euronews’ Europe Today from Strasbourg on Tuesday, Bryant said the UK was in “very productive conversations” with EU counterparts and expressed confidence that negotiators could reach a “good arrangement”.
“We need to make sure that we don't provide a problem for each other because, frankly, the problem of over-capacity in steel, which undermines sovereign steel capacity on the continent of Europe, is not provided by us, it's provided by China and some other countries in the world,” Bryant explained.
The European Union is set to halve its quotas and double its tariffs on foreign steel on July 1st, in a response to a glut of cheap Chinese imports and amid stalled talks with the Trump administrations on reducing US tariffs on EU steel.
