Green policy, not Trump's tariffs, killed British steel – Wattwatt?

Vijay Jayarj

British Steel, the last major steel fortress in Britain, announced plans to close two of its explosive furnaces in Scunthorpe, effectively ending 150 years of Virgin Steel production in Britain. The media are eager to blame the blame for the recent 25% tariff on steel imports by U.S. President Donald Trump.

But this narrative is a convenient distraction from the more sinister culprit: the British government's relentless pursuit of self-destructive green policies has weakened British manufacturing for nearly a decade.

During the Industrial Revolution, the British steel industry made the island's uplift a global superpower. Steel is progressively acumen, enabling the state to far outperform its economic and military supreme competitors in the 20th century. Once its backbone of industrial strength, steel manufacturing is suffocated by high energy costs and non-competitive pricing – a direct consequence of cult dogma, which takes precedence over reducing harmless carbon dioxide emissions rather than economic survival.

In the 1970s, more than 20 million tons were produced each year, and by 2024, the output decreased to 4 million tons. Meanwhile, imports have soared to 68% of domestic consumption, up from 55% in 2022 as cheap foreign steel floods. The government's policy of “rebuilding” the industry paved the way for this collapse.

Jingye, the owner of British steel, said the “highly challenging market conditions, tariffs and higher environmental costs” were the reason for the Scunthorpe closure, which threatened up to 2,700 jobs and could start as early as June.

This closure is not a sudden reaction to external trade pressure, but an inevitable result of a self-inflicted death spiral. Despite the cheap, carbon-intensive steels made in China and India without a clear “climate guilt”, Britain's obsession with zero “virtue” has turned its producers into victims on the green altar.

Green Policy: Silent Assassin

Let us succumb to pleasure: Britain's green policy is more of a national suicide than the noble Crusade. In the past decade, successive governments have urged to ignore the reality of industrial survival with a passion and pursued emission targets. The Climate Change Act of 2008 set the stage and promised the UK to reduce CO2 emissions by 80% by 2050 – a terrible impossible that was later screwed to the holy grail of a stricter “net zero”.

This ambition has bred a network of regulations, taxes and subsidies that raise energy costs to unparalleled levels among UK peers and makes it impossible for steel manufacturing to cause heavy losses.

The proposed solution is to transfer to an arc furnace, which recycles the steel furnace instead of producing it from raw materials with more carbon-intensive explosion furnaces. However, Chinese owners of British Steel reportedly seek $1.3 billion in subsidies to fund $2.6 billion in changes.

In addition, the UK's industrial electricity price is about 40% higher than France, and four times the product of energy-consuming steel manufacturers in the United States, such as the “green” energy choice – a death sentence.

The UK emissions trade program has increased the pain for British steel, which increases the cost of the company's carbon dioxide emissions, a fine that Chinese and Indian competitors largely avoid.

China, the global steel leader, produces more than 1 billion tons per year, exceeding the UK's total output in the past 47 years. India follows closely behind, raising metal at prices that Britain cannot match.

The steel industry in China and India is driven by cheap coal and has minimal restrictions on carbon dioxide emissions. Neither faces punitive energy costs or elimination of emissions taxes on UK steel. Although the UK issues up to $103 per ton of CO2, China charges its manufacturers fees, but only a small percentage of that. India has no state accusations at all. result? British Steel is priced from the global market based on green compliance costs.

As Westminster policymakers hunted down a utopian vision that brought industrial destruction, China and India did not need to raise their fingers. The media can spin its tariff story, but the facts are even more obvious: Britain's steel industry is slowly blown dry by a government fascinated by green dogmas and cannot see the massacre it does.

The demise of British steel is a stark warning from Western European manufacturing giants, and the U.S. trade cost-effectiveness to climate compliance is a bargain for Fauskin that can be boycotted by company executives and lobbyists.

The comment was originally RealClearworld April 4, 2025.

Vijay Jayaraj is a Science and Research Assistant company₂ allianceArlington, Virginia. he He holds a Master of Environmental Science from the University of East Anglia and a Bachelor of Science in Energy Management from Robert Gordon University in the UK, and a Bachelor of Engineering from Anna University in India.

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