A NEWPORT steelworks and subsidiary of Tata Steel will be hit as China announced it is slamming steel tariffs on the UK.

Orb Electrical Steelworks, owned by Cogent Power, produces a type of high-tech electrical steel.

On Friday it was revealed China plans to levy 46 per cent duties on this type of electrical steel from companies in the European Union, South Korea and Japan.

This latest twist in the trade war comes after Prime Minister David Cameron met with Chinese leader Xi Jinping in a bid to slow the flood of Chinese steel exports to Europe.

Today Mark Spencer, secretary of the Orb Joint Works Council and representative of Community union, explained to the Argus how the Orb Electrical Steelworks will be hit.

He said Cogent does not import to China anymore but will still be affected.

He said: “We don’t import into China any more. But because the tariffs will also be in place for other imports, such as the Japanese and the Koreans who are importing to China quite a bit, they are going to be looking to get customers elsewhere.

“So we will be hit, it will have a knockdown effect.”

The Newport steelworks is one of just 16 global producers of the high-tech steel. The steel is used to make generators, transformers, motors and household appliances.

Mr Spencer said: “The Tories say they are going to be helping as they sit down with the Chinese and then on Thursday then we get hit with this.”

Speaking about the steel crisis in general, Mr Spencer said: “It’s quite calm here at the moment. We are still in a state of limbo.”

Since its restructure in 2014, Orb has had a difficult few years but is now back in profit, Mr Spencer said.

“Are we going to be sold? Because luckily enough Orb are still in profit.

“We went through our restructure and the last 18 months were pretty hard. We are back in profit but you never know if that’d good enough for the Indians to keep us on.”