“I know that all of our U.K. friends would be very much interested in such a cooperation,” Šefčovič said.
The U.K. has long pushed for inclusion in a Western steel bloc, in the hopes that it could help Britain dodge the new 50 percent tariffs Brussels plans to impose. Britain has already moved in the same direction — tightening quotas on steel imports and raising tariffs above those quotas to 50 percent.
“Because of global overcapacities, we have to adopt different safeguard measures,” said Šefčovič. “Americans did it. Canadians followed. We had to adopt our safeguard measures to simply save our steel industry. U.K. is following suit,” he said.