‘Vital’ that British steel gets Trump tariff deal after UK-US trade pact, say unions
Steel trade unions have said it is “absolutely vital” that the UK rapidly secures a deal to protect the sector from Donald Trump’s tariffs, after the industry was excluded from an initial UK-US pact signed on Monday night.Keir Starmer and Trump signed off a UK-US trade deal at the G7 summit in Canada, with the US president saying Britain would have protection against future tariffs “because I like them”.The car industry was relieved that tariffs on the sector will be reduced to 10% from 27.5%.The UK aerospace sector will face no tariffs at all from the US after deal, which followed an initial agreement made in May.
However, the announcement of the deal did not include the removal of tariffs on steel imports.UK steelmakers still face 25% tariffs, although this is lower than the global tariff of 50% imposed by the Trump administration on other nations.The UK business department said the two leaders had pledged to “make progress towards 0% tariffs on core steel products as agreed”.Alasdair McDiarmid, the assistant general secretary of the steel union Community, welcomed the progress that has been made on reaching a deal on steel.“However, it’s now absolutely vital that a deal for steel is secured as soon as possible,” he said.
“Our steel producers and their US customers need an end to the current state of uncertainty to allow normal business to resume,“Crucially, we must see a full exemption for all UK steel exports to the US – without that guarantee some of our leading steel businesses could be left behind, with a threat to jobs and livelihoods,”A steel industry source said the automotive deal had been widely expected to be completed before steel and aluminium,However, the person said “we now need steel to happen pretty quickly” to avoid the risk of 50% tariffs kicking in on 9 July, under the terms of the UK’s temporary exemption,Gareth Stace, the director general of the trade body UK Steel, said: “We look forward to imminently benefiting from a tariff rate cut similar to that which the automotive and aerospace industries will enjoy in seven days.
The UK steel industry badly needs clarification over the ‘melted and poured’ requirement, and the level of quotas available to UK steelmakers so that we can restore the historical trade routes that have served both the UK and the US economies for many years.”Ministers have been working to ensure the UK’s biggest steelmaker, Tata Steel, is included in tariff-free access to the US.Its bosses fear the deal could end up excluding Indian-owned Tata Steel, which runs the vast Port Talbot steelworks in south Wales, because of the origin of some of its products.The company exports more than $100m (£74m) worth of goods to the US every year.The Chinese ownership of British Steel, which is under government control, could be a sticking point in a deal for the industry as the executive order signed by Trump suggests the US wants assurances that the metal originates in the UK.
Sign up to Business TodayGet set for the working day – we'll point you to all the business news and analysis you need every morningafter newsletter promotion“The UK also committed to working to meet American requirements on the security of the supply chains of steel and aluminium products intended for export to the US and on the nature of ownership of relevant production facilities,” the order states,Separately, British Steel has secured a new five-year supply contract with Network Rail worth more than £500m, under which British Steel will supply between 70,000 and 80,000 tonnes of rail a year,McDiarmid welcomed the extension but expressed concern that “British Steel’s share of the Network Rail contract is set to reduce significantly”,Mike Hawes, the chief executive of the Society of Motor Manufacturers and Traders, told BBC Radio 4’s Today programme he hoped the new 10% tariff rate for UK carmakers would start “in the next few days”,The UK-US trade pact had been negotiated in early May, “but we’ve been waiting for it to be implemented so manufacturers can start shipping without being subject to those punitive tariffs”, he said.
He added that “a lot less” had been exported to the US in the meantime, and some UK manufacturers had halted shipments.The British luxury carmakers Jaguar Land Rover and Bentley are among those that paused shipments.“They’ve been pausing because their customers – we’ve got shrewd customers – were going to wait and see what was going to happen,” Hawes said.“You could see that the cost to the ultimate consumer was going to come down because of the reduction in the tariff, but you just didn’t know when.”
Bar Council is wise to the risk of AI misuse | Letters
In your report (High court tells UK lawyers to stop misuse of AI after fake case-law citations, 6 June), you quote Dame Victoria Sharp’s call that we, the Bar Council, and our solicitor colleagues at the Law Society address this matter urgently.We couldn’t agree more. This high court judgment emphasises the dangers of the misuse by lawyers of artificial intelligence, particularly large language models, and in particular its serious implications for the administration of justice and public confidence in the justice system.The public is entitled to expect from legal professionals the highest standards of integrity and competence in appropriate understanding and use of new technologies, as well as in all other respects.The Bar Council has already issued guidance on the opportunities and risks surrounding the use of generative AI, which is quoted by the court, and is in the process of setting up a joint working group with the Bar Standards Board to identify how best we can support barristers to uphold those standards with appropriate further training and supervision
Watch out, hallucinating Humphrey’s about in Whitehall | Brief letters
I doubt that government officials consulted their AI tool, Humphrey, on what it should be called (UK government rollout of Humphrey AI tool raises fears about reliance on big tech, 15 June). It could have advised that in the 1970s the name was used for a milk marketing campaign: “Watch out, there’s a Humphrey about.” That line will now have a whole new meaning. Having spent the last few weeks voting in the Lords to try, in vain, to achieve protections for the creative industries from AI abuse, that meaning might be prophetic. On a personal level, my husband is angry that his name is being stolen again
Facial recognition technology needs stricter regulation | Letter
The Metropolitan police’s recognition of the value in “some sort of framework or statutory guidance” for live facial recognition is welcome (Live facial recognition cameras may become ‘commonplace’ as police use soars, 24 May). However, it is not just police use of this technology that needs a clear legal framework.Despite the scale and speed of its expansion, there is still no specific law providing a basis for live facial recognition or other emerging biometric technologies, whether these are used in the public or private sector.Biometric surveillance is expanding rapidly, not just in policing but across society: in train stations, schools and supermarkets. Newer biometric systems go further, claiming to infer people’s emotional states, raising serious concerns about their accuracy, ethics and legality
Tell us about your best Reddit moment
Reddit celebrates its 20th birthday at the end of the month. With 17 million daily viewers, the online community forum has brought various issues to people’s attention, from the timely and topical to the bizarre.We’d like to hear about your best Reddit moment. Perhaps you’ve been able to share a personal experience and felt you found your tribe discussing it with others. Or maybe you’ve had a complex issue explained to you like a five-year-old, or just found yourself laughing along with a viral moment with millions of others
DNA testing firm 23andMe fined £2.3m by UK regulator for 2023 data hack
The genetic testing company 23andMe has been fined more than £2.3m for failing to protect the personal information of more than 150,000 UK residents after a large-scale cyberattack in 2023.Family trees, health reports, names and postcodes were among the sensitive data hacked from the California-based company. It only confirmed the breach months after the infiltration started and once an employee saw the stolen data advertised for sale on the social media platform Reddit, according to the UK Information Commissioner’s Office – which levied the fine.The information commissioner, John Edwards, called the months-long incident across the summer of 2023 a “profoundly damaging breach”
Meta sacrifices a heap of money at the altar of AI
Mark Zuckerberg announced in April that the company would make huge capital expenditures in the coming year to keep up in the race to develop cutting-edge artificial intelligence. He made good on that promise last week with a $15bn “AI superintelligence” team that would feature reported nine-figure salaries and a 49% investment in Scale AI. Meta also hired Scale’s 28-year-old founder, Alexandr Wang, a former roommate of OpenAI’s Sam Altman.Before Meta’s investment, Scale counted most of the major players in AI among its clients, and some of them were less than thrilled with the development. Bloomberg puts it succinctly: Scale AI’s Wang Brings to Meta Knowledge of What Everyone Else is Doing
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