Aurelia Butler

The UK will extend a package of quotas and tariffs on foreign steel imports by two years in an effort to protect domestic producers, the international trade secretary announced on Wednesday.Anne-Marie Trevelyan admitted that the move would risk a legal challenge at the World Trade Organization, which oversees global trade, but said it was essential to protect Britain’s steel industry.“We have concluded that it is in the economic interest of the UK to maintain the safeguards to reduce the risk of material harm if they were not maintained,” she told the House of Commons.However, some experts believe extending the tariffs would constitute a breach of the UK’s international legal obligations under WTO rules.Lord Christopher Geidt quit this month as ethics adviser to Boris Johnson, the prime minister, citing his disapproval of the plan to breach international law through steel tariffs as part of the reason for his decision.The government will extend existing steel tariffs, largely on developed countries and China, by a further two years. It will also expand import limits to other, mostly developing but as yet unnamed, countries to prevent a flood of steel into the UK after some of them increased their exports to the UK beyond the legal threshold. Trevelyan said Ukraine would not be included, in order to help its steel industry.The move was welcomed by trade unions and UK Steel, the industry trade body, which said it showed that the “government is backing Britain’s steel industry”.“As the UK establishes itself as an independent trading nation, [ministers] have taken their duty seriously to stand up for jobs in British steelmaking and for the future of this strategic industry,” said Gareth Stace, UK Steel’s director-general.The interventions, he added, would “guard against anticipated surges in imports from trade diverted away from the US and EU markets that will remain shielded for years to come” and which would have “risked jobs, investment, and our ability to transition to net zero”. Sir Andrew Cook, chair of family-owned Sheffield steel fabricator William Cook, said unrestricted imports would have “created a great deal of damage, not just to the domestic industry but also on a wider scale”.Most of the “offending steel comes from China . . . which has almost single-handedly created enormous overcapacity”, he added, noting that there were also questions over the reliability of that country’s product quality control.The UK sector employs more than 33,000 people directly and supports a further 42,000 jobs in supply chains.

The two largest producers, Tata Steel and British Steel, are both backed by foreign owners — India’s Tata and China’s Jingye Group, respectively. Liberty Steel, which has manufacturing sites in Yorkshire, is owned by Sanjeev Gupta’s GFG Alliance. GFG’s companies are under investigation by the Serious Fraud Office over suspected fraud and money laundering.The UK adopted “safeguard” measures in 2018 while it was part of the EU and has since rolled over most of them.The limits, which apply to 15 categories of steel, restrict how much a country can export to Britain before being hit with a 25 per cent tariff.Nick Thomas-Symonds, shadow trade secretary, welcomed the decision, saying it would provide “welcome relief” to the steel industry, but criticised the government for not moving faster.The decision, however, has sparked concerns among some UK manufacturers who said they had to rely on overseas steel as domestic suppliers were unable to meet demand. “The cost changes associated with further tariffs will force businesses across the supply chain to scrutinise their contracts,” warned Mark Stefanini, partner at law firm Mayer Brown. “They will be seeking to understand whether and in what circumstances they are required to pay these additional costs and if so whether they can in turn pass them on to their customers.” More

European stock markets turned lower on Wednesday and government bond prices rose, as traders weighed up fresh signs of a looming economic slowdown.The regional Stoxx Europe 600 share index fell 0.6 per cent, calling a halt to three days of gains. Germany’s Dax slipped 1.2 per cent and the FTSE 100 was 0.1 per cent higher in London. Those moves followed heavy losses overnight for Wall Street’s main US share indices, after a lacklustre US consumer confidence report fuelled concerns about a downturn. Futures trading implied the S&P 500 share index would edge 0.4 per cent higher in early New York dealings, with contracts on the tech-heavy Nasdaq 100 also adding 0.4 per cent. Central banks have moved to tackle persistently high inflation with aggressive interest rate rises, prompting concerns that tighter policy will curb spending by businesses and households.“We’ve already had a lot of weak data from the US housing market, we’ve got weak consumer confidence data from around the world because of rising prices, and business investment tends to react to the consumer,” said Trevor Greetham, head of multi-asset at Royal London Asset Management. In government bond markets, the yield on the 10-year US Treasury note fell 0.06 percentage points to 3.15 per cent as the price of the benchmark debt security rose. Germany’s 10-year Bund yield slid 0.07 percentage points to 1.57 per cent.Bond yields, which move inversely to their prices, tend to rise in tandem with forecasts for interest rates and inflation. But market expectations of a possible recession have prompted a repricing in recent weeks.After the Federal Reserve raised its main funds rate by an extra large 0.75 percentage points this month, several of its policymakers argued for a similar-sized increase in July. The European Central Bank, which has experimented with negative interest rates to boost economic activity since 2014, is widely expected to lift its main deposit rate above zero by September. Futures markets are now tipping the Fed’s benchmark interest rate to climb to 3.5 per cent by early 2023, down from estimates roughly two weeks ago of 3.9 per cent — signalling scaled-back expectations of the extent to which central bankers will lift borrowing costs. The Fed’s current benchmark target range sits at 1.50-1.75 per cent.“People fear how much demand could fall in this period where central banks are raising rates quite aggressively,” said Nitesh Shah, head of commodities and macroeconomic research for Europe at exchange traded fund provider WisdomTree. “With higher recession risk, bonds can help your portfolio because you can price some rate cuts in coming years” added Guilhem Savry, head of macro and dynamic allocation at Unigestion. In a potential signal that surging inflation in some large economies is easing, the annual rate of consumer price inflation in Germany declined to 7.6 per cent this month from 7.9 per cent in May, data on Wednesday showed. Elsewhere in markets, Brent crude oil rose 1.3 per cent to $119.54 a barrel as worries about falling global demand were overshadowed by forecasts of a supply deficit as western nations ratchet up their restrictions on Russian exports. In Asia, Hong Kong’s Hang Seng share index fell 1.9 per cent while its sub-index of technology shares lost 3.3 per cent. More

COLOMBO (Reuters) – Doctors and bankers were among the hundreds of Sri Lankans who marched on Wednesday to demand that the government resolve a severe fuel shortage at the heart of the worst economic crisis in decades or step down.Weeks of street demonstrations against cascading woes such as power cuts and shortages of food and medicine brought a change in government last month after nine people were killed and about 300 injured in protests.Left with just enough fuel for about a week, the government restricted supplies on Tuesday to essential services, such as trains, buses and the health sector, for two weeks.Still, doctors, nurses and medical staff say that despite being designated essential workers, they struggle to find enough fuel to get to work on time.”This is an impossible situation, the government has to give us a solution,” H. M. Mediwatta, secretary of one of Sri Lanka’s largest nursing unions, the All Island Nurses Union, told reporters.The South Asian nation’s most serious economic crisis since independence in 1948 comes after COVID-19 battered the tourism-reliant economy and slashed remittances from overseas workers.Rising oil prices, populist tax cuts and a seven-month ban on the import of chemical fertilisers last year that devastated agriculture have compounded the trouble.A march to the president’s house by a trade union grouping of bankers, teachers, and the self-employed was stopped by riot police who had thrown up barricades to guard the area.”Things have become unbearable for the common man,” said Joseph Stalin, an official of a teachers’ union in the grouping. “We want this government to go home.”Vowing to keep up the protests, he added, “Today, schools are closed, state institutions are closed, everything is closed. No fuel, nobody can get fuel. People are facing great difficulties.” More than 100 medical staff of the national hospital in Colombo marched to the prime minister’s office calling for the government to ensure fresh supplies of fuel and medicine, including life-saving drugs, that have run low for months.Public health inspectors and other health service workers are also on strike on Wednesday and Thursday.The island of 22 million has nearly run out of useable foreign exchange reserves to import essentials such as food, medicine, petrol and diesel.As the sense of crisis grows, many people have been detained trying to flee the country by boat.The government is also looking abroad for help, to countries from the Middle East to Russia.On Tuesday, in a bid to secure fuel, Power and Energy Minister Kanchana Wijesekera met Qatar’s minister of state for energy affairs and the chief executive of Qatar Energy. He is also seeking a line of credit from a Qatar development fund.Another Sri Lankan minister will travel to Russia at the weekend, in search of energy deals.U.S. President Joe Biden has pledged $20 million to feed more than 800,000 Sri Lankan children and 27,000 pregnant women and lactating mothers for the next 15 months, President Gotabaya Rajapaksa said on Twitter (NYSE:TWTR).Investment firm Asia Securities said the shortages of fuel and other essentials, dwindling reserves, and low fiscal space would remain key concerns for the rest of the year.The economy could contract by 7.5% to 9.0% on the year, outstripping the firm’s previous forecast of a contraction of about 5.5%, it said. The economy grew by 3.3% last year.”This, combined with low U.S. dollar liquidity and rising rates, looks to dampen economic productivity for the medium term,” it said.An International Monetary Fund (IMF) team is in Colombo for talks on a bailout package of as much as $3 billion. Sri Lanka hopes to reach a staff-level agreement by Thursday, but even so, it would be unlikely to bring immediate funds. More

NEW YORK (Reuters) – If you are having trouble keeping track of all the consumer boycotts swirling around, you are not alone.    A quarter of Americans are boycotting a product or company they had spent money on in the past, according to a recent survey from online loan marketplace LendingTree.    Whether because of political differences, or stances on social issues, or concerns about environmental impact, people are expressing themselves not only with their voices, but with their wallets.    “The numbers are big, because people have become more willing to come out and take a political stance in recent years,” said Matt Schulz, LendingTree’s chief credit analyst. “One of the ways people can have their voice heard in an impactful way is through a boycott.”Boycotts are not new: In fact when LendingTree ran this survey in the summer 2020, with the country roiling from protests following the murder of George Floyd, the percentages were even higher.    In the most recent survey, of over 2,100 consumers in April, the segments of society most likely to be boycotting some product or company were six-figure earners (37% of them do so), Gen Z (32%), Millennials (28%), those whose political affiliation is Democratic (31%) and Republican (24%).     Boycotts can extend to travel as well: 24% of respondents said they have scratched states or countries off their itineraries because of legislative or policy disagreements.    “Those numbers don’t surprise me, because people are becoming more aware of where to spend their money or not spend it,” said Adrianne Wright, founder and chief executive of Rosie, a storytelling agency for nonprofit organizations.”It’s good to rally and march, but just gathering may not get the outcomes you’re looking for. To move the world forward, you have to think about how to make good trouble, and get more creative with your tactics.”    During the administration of President Donald Trump, for instance, the ‘Grab Your Wallet’ movement (grabyourwallet.org) compiled a spreadsheet of Trump-connected businesses to avoid, “to protest the Trump administration’s serial targeting of women, immigrants, and communities of color.”As an example on the other side of the political spectrum, Disney recently faced calls for a consumer boycott, related to its opposition to Florida’s so-called ‘Don’t Say Gay’ bill.     And on the hot-button topic of Russia, Yale School of Management professor Jeffrey Sonnenfeld has been assembling a list of companies (both American and international) that are still operating in Russia, despite widespread anger in the West over its invasion of Ukraine.    The most-cited reason for boycotting? Political donations, mentioned by 39% of respondents in the LendingTree survey. That was followed by treatment of employees (34%), stance on social issues (33%), and policy positions (30%).    WHEN TO TAKE ACTION?    The real challenge for consumers: How much to let political and social issues guide your purchasing decisions. There are so many potential subjects you might disagree on with a company, that it would be very easy to enter any mall or supermarket and be completely paralyzed.    On a practical level, it requires a huge amount of time and effort to stay current on the issues of every company you do business with on a daily basis. It is also challenging to boycott multinationals which may make hundreds of different products.    Companies can feel like they are being put in a box. Taking a political stance may please some consumers but anger others. Not taking a stance can do exactly the same thing.    Even trickier for companies: consumers most likely to boycott are the biggest earners, according to LendingTree. Among those with six-figure incomes, 77% of them are more likely to spend their cash at businesses that share their political or social beliefs. “That’s a big deal, because businesses tend to listen to people who spend the most money with them,” said Schulz.    For consumers, it is a matter of picking your battles. “We are all so exhausted and overwhelmed with all the issues coming up every single day, so I would say choose one or two issues that are near and dear to your heart,” Wright said.”You can’t do everything all at once. So what are the issues that break your heart? Then look at the products and services in your life, the ones you come into contact with on a daily basis, and look at the alignment between those products and those issues.” More