The European Union is to impose tariffs of 14.9 to 26 per cent on steel imports to protect itself from a possible surge of material diverted away from the United States by high new duties, an official said today.
US President George W. Bush has infuriated the EU by setting tariffs of up to 30 per cent on steel from Europe, Asia and Latin America to protect struggling US steel products.
The EU, fearing that steel effectively barred from the United States will instead be directed to the European market, will impose its own tariffs and quotas.
The EU official said the trade measures would be in place for 200 days, or around six months, split into two periods of three months.
He said only 40 per cent of the steel imported into the EU would be affected by the tariffs, which would apply on top of an import quota.
He said the quota for the first six months would be 5.7 million tonnes, after which import duties would apply.
He said the major categories included 1.9 million tonnes of non-alloy hot rolled coils and more than 935,000 tonnes of cold rolled sheets. The official said annual imports of steel into the EU were around 26.5 million tonnes.
The trade measures were expected to be finally approved by the European Commission, the EU's executive arm, on Wednesday.
"What we are intending to do with these safeguard measures is to protect our market without being protectionist," EU Commission trade spokesman Mr Anthony Gooch told reporters.
As well as the safeguard measures on steel, the EU has drawn up a list of US goods it will potentially hit with around $2.0 billion of retaliatory trade sanctions if efforts to win compensation fail.