EU moves to curb steel imports to protect military industrial base from China overcapacity
Facing duel threats from Washington and Beijing, European Commission wants measures meant to build security into its economic policies
As Europe scrambles to rearm its militaries, Brussels has trained its crosshairs on a long-standing trade problem that it now fears could present a new security challenge: China’s excess steel capacity.
Cheap imports from “notably China and in recent years India” have placed Europe’s producers of steel in peril, the European Commission said on Wednesday.
Such competition brings the threat of deindustrialisation in that sector – mirroring an existing trend for aluminium, which would hamper the continent’s efforts to ramp up its military industrial base “with the flexibility and speed required in a fast-changing geopolitical context”.
The commission now wants to put up several barriers to metals imports, measures meant to build an emphasis on security into the bloc’s economic policies.
The EU has long railed against China’s steel output, which represents more than half of the world’s total, but has been stirred into action by two factors emanating from the United States.
With US President Donald Trump’s sidelining of Brussels in his bid to bring a quick end to the war in Ukraine and apparent desire to deal directly with Russian President Vladimir Putin, America’s security blanket for Europe is no longer guaranteed, ushering in a new era of defence spending.