With the American trade agreement, the British steel industry feels much needed lighting

The call from a supervisor came to the steel shop floor in Sheffield on Thursday afternoon, England: the rates were eliminated. “Everything had changed for us,” said Richard Bott, while he stood near piles of steel plates that still radiated heat waves from the mill.

In a trade agreement with Great Britain, on Thursday announced a lot of fanfare, President Trump agreed to the 25 percent rates on steel That was a terrible threat to the wrestling industry of Great -Britain and the employer of Mr Bott, Marcegaglia Stain -free Sheffield.

The Cavernous Plant is one of the last remaining large steel facilities in a city that has been a center of innovation in the industry since the 18th century.

The plant is now old and dusty, but in some respects it is avant-garde. It uses an electric oven, a technology that wants the government to take other mills to reduce emissions, to melt piles of sparkling stainless steel scrap in melted metal.

Marcegaglia, part of a family business in Italy, is sent from Staal from Great Britain to the United States annually around a quarter of the country’s steel exports.

The American rates, which were announced in February but came into force in March, added substantial costs and complexity to what was already a falling industry. British steel makers are struggling with a weak demand, external competition and high energy and environmental costs.

The difficulties were recently emphasized when the government took over control over the last major of Great -Britain Steel Mill, at ScunthorpeAbout a 90 -minute drive from Sheffield, for fear that the Chinese owners of the plant would close it.

Marcegaglia, that ships finished and semi -final stainless steel products to the United States, where it has a mill in Richburg, SC, saw “a delay in the question as they wanted to pay the 25 percent duty or not,” said Liam Bates, a president of Marcegaglia.

In one attempt to mitigate the damage, Marcegaglia ran to load a ship with steel and send it over the Atlantic to arrive before the rates came into force, but it came too late, which added millions of dollars in costs.

On Friday there was a careful sense of relief in the factory, which employs 440. “It’s good news for the company and the country,” said Ryan Johnson, a project engineer.

Christian Bruggmann, the most important operational officer of the factory, said he had thought that rates would be lifted on a large part of the material that Marcegaglia exported to the United States. “At least some of our customers in the US will pick up the phone and try to let it work,” he said.

However, business officials say that they still do not know what the deal means for products sent from Great Britain to countries of the European Union such as Sweden for further processing and then to the United States.

The rate of 25 percent on steel imported into the United States is still present for other countries. What rates are still to be seen at the European Union that is still to be seen, and creates a great unknown to a British company that sends large quantities of its output to both Europe and the United States.

The impulsive approach to the Trump administration of trade policy also creates uncertainty and juice trusts, they say.

“There seems to be no structure, so you can’t plan anything,” said Tracey Wilshaw, the planning manager of the factory. “That gives us no stability at all.”

Yet Mrs. Wilshaw said she was more optimistic after the announcement on Thursday.

Steel UK, an industrial group, welcomed the relaxation of the rates and said that the United States were the second most important market for steel in Great Britain after the European Union, good for around 9 percent of sales per volume.

The British Prime Minister, Keir Starmer, has recently risen for the defense of the domestic steel industry, but these companies are declining and remain threatened. According to Steel UK, only 35 percent of the demand for steel in Great Britain is paid by domestic production.

Dave Brooks, the production manager at Marcegaglia, remembered that he had joined the steel activity in 1986 as a 16-year-old intern and the possibility to work at other facilities, including a research and development center.

These units, he said, are all closed in the waves of business takeovers and consolidations in British and European industry in recent decades.

Yet steel workers seem to be a resilient community that mainly enjoys the work and makes little sense of looking at the disadvantages.

“Just grin and bear” it, said Simon Flynn, a contractor.