Europe’s steel industry faces being wiped out because of Donald Trump’s 50% tariffs, high energy costs and a glut of subsidized Chinese steel, one of Germany’s biggest industrial groups has warned.
The Guardian reports that Ilse Henne, a board member at the steel, engineering and chemicals group ThyssenKrupp, said the industry faced an existential crisis after the U.S. president’s decision June 4 to double tariffs on steel and aluminum imports from 25% to 50%.
Asked at a European Policy Centre conference in Brussels if she “feared a wipeout,” Henne, who is chief executive of ThyssenKrupp Materials Services, replied: “Of course.”
“Steel is at the beginning of the value chain, so you create a lot of instability for all these supply chains that get disrupted that now all of a sudden have to deal with much more expensive steel,” Henne told the Guardian:
She said Europe must intervene to save the sector, because it is fundamental to military security and is a large employer. If the industry failed, she argued, Europe would be left reliant on the U.S. and China for a key manufacturing material.
