US Steel and Aluminium Tariffs

Michelle Donelan Excerpts

Monday 4th June 2018 Commons Chamber

[Dr Fox]

The United States has long been at the forefront of leading global free trade, including in setting up the WTO itself. That is why we find it so disappointing that the current Administration should take this particular route and try this particular remedy for the problem. The right hon. Lady will notice that being a member of the European Union has no more protected us from these tariffs than Mexico or Canada.

[Michelle Donelan (Chippenham) (Con)]

The UK produces some very high-value steels, some of which cannot be sourced in the US. What more can we do to promote British manufacturing overseas?

[Dr Fox]

My hon. Friend makes a very interesting point. Not only do we send some very high-end steel to the United States, but some of it is steel that the United States itself does not manufacture. For end users in the United States, that will actually increase the price of a product they do not manufacture domestically, which cannot have anything other than adverse economic consequences. That is why it is very important, as I have said, that the voices of US industry and of those in Congress make their views very clear about the potential damage that this will pose, as Chairman Brady has said, to American families and jobs.