20 October 2025 – Do EU steel tariffs breach the Brexit Agreement? Not only we see it that way – British experts have now reached the same conclusion. There is no legal basis for the planned EU tariffs on steel in relation to the United Kingdom. German steel export declines to the United States remain limited; compared with January to August 2024, there has been little change so far.
Do EU steel tariffs breach the Brexit Agreement?
That the Commission’s proposal and a possible implementation of the successor regulation for the EU Safeguard measure on certain steel products would encounter global resistance had been foreseeable.
In particular, the United Kingdom, which was part of the European Union for a long time and left the Union in February 2020, feels offended by the EU proposal – barely five months after both sides tried to move closer together again in trade policy.
According to British sources, almost 80% of the country’s steel exports go to the EU. Should the EU’s measures go ahead as planned, this would cause serious damage to the British economy.
Commission puts the EU-UK Trade Agreement at risk
Once again, this shows the poor planning of the European Commission. If the EC really tries to push through these measures by force, this could call into question the entire EU-UK Trade and Cooperation Agreement, which regulates the movement of goods in the post-Brexit era.
This conclusion is also reached by Sir Crawford Falconer, one of the experts involved in negotiating the Brexit Agreement and also a judge at the World Trade Organization (WTO).
He sees no legal basis on the part of the EU to introduce new tariffs or quotas against the United Kingdom after the end of the EU Safeguard measure – especially since there are detailed contractual provisions on this in the more than 2,500-page EU-UK Trade and Cooperation Agreement.
Commission proposals barely feasible
The United Kingdom is an excellent example of how short-sighted the Commission’s proposals for a post-Safeguard regulation have been. The EU currently has more than 70 free trade agreements in force, all of which would now have to be amended.
Even the changes regarding the explicitly regulated rules of origin (the “Melt and Pour” concept) alone would cause more than just challenges.
Steel: German export decline to the US remains limited
The global tariffs imposed by US President Donald Trump will cause additional costs of more than USD 1.2 trillion in 2025, of which around two-thirds will be borne by consumers – according to an analysis by S&P Global.
Tariffs act as indirect taxes on international supply chains, increase import prices, and reduce corporate profits. About one third of the burden falls directly on companies themselves.
In light of this analysis, EU member state Germany, which is one of the largest steel exporters to the United States, has so far come off relatively lightly.
German steel exports across the Atlantic declined by only 2.3% between January and August 2025, according to a current press release by the German statistics authority DESTATIS.
However, European steel manufacturers have in recent months painted a much more dramatic picture, especially regarding exports to the United States.
As so often, their portrayal once again appears to be deliberately exaggerated in order to put political actors in the EU and its member states under pressure.
German economy suffering from EU regulatory chaos
The fact that the German economy is particularly suffering from the regulatory confusion of the European Commission is shown by the decline in imports of steel and steel products, which have fallen to their lowest level since 2020 in the first eight months of the year.
Over the past two years, the Commission has created considerable uncertainty for European companies, not least through the introduction of the CBAM carbon tax.
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