(Feb 16): The UK government debuted a new plan to protect jobs in the country’s steel industry just days after US President Donald Trump threatened to introduce 25% tariffs on imports of steel and aluminum from all countries.

The government reiterated a commitment to invest £2.5 billion (US$3.15 billion or RM13.9 billion) in order to support the steel industry, Business Secretary Jonathan Reynolds said in a statement on Sunday. The funds will partly come from Britain’s newly created National Wealth Fund.

With the plan, lawmakers are hoping to reverse the decline of a sector which has been hit with rising energy costs, competition from abroad and falling investment. The money will be spent on improvements such as more efficient electric arc furnaces, designed to help British producers be better able to compete.

“We are putting the full weight of Whitehall behind the industry to build on this success,” Reynolds said in a statement.

Last week, UK officials had planned to talk to their counterparts in Trump’s administration in an effort to avoid the tariffs on US imports of steel and aluminum, Bloomberg previously reported. Chancellor of the Exchequer Rachel Reeves has said she believes the UK can strike an agreement with the US to avoid the measures.

“Balanced trade — and that’s what the UK and the US have, there’s not a surplus or deficit, our trade is pretty much balanced — there’s not really a problem there that needs to be addressed through tariffs or any other sort of barriers,” Reeves said on Matt Forde’s The Political Party podcast on Monday.

About 10% of steel made in Britain is exported to America and the UK also imports the metal from the US.

The UK’s new steel plan comes after Reeves threw her weight behind a plan to build a third runway at Heathrow Airport, a move that would require 400,000 tonnes of steel — enough to build the Empire State Building.

“The deal announced by Heathrow announced this week will secure a strong industry pipeline for years to come,” Reynolds said.

The new plan will look for areas to expand UK steelmaking, protect it from unfair trading practices abroad and improve scrap processing facilities. It will also encourage use of UK-made steel in public projects.

“As the world becomes more volatile, primary domestic steel making capacity is vital for both our economy and domestic security,” Andy Prendergast, national secretary for the GMB Union, said in the statement.

Uploaded by Magessan Varatharaja