Head of US Steel Mario Longhi said the EU and UK were “negligent” when it came to how they approached the cheap steel that China is dumping on the global market, he told the Financial Times (paywall). The global steel industry was going through one of the worst downturns in 50 years, due to China’s overproduction and tumbling oil prices. “For [Europe] to be . . . considering granting as a fact market economy status to China where you have all the evidence in place that denies them that right it’s just ridiculous,” he said. Meanwhile, China’s steel industry is now expected to shrink fast enough to reduce its exports, cauterizing last year’s global price collapse, according to Bloomberg. “We can see a spike and a steel shortage in 2018, when the Chinese armada is defeated, demand turns up, the global economy grows, and there’s a lot of protectionism,’’ said Peter Marcus, managing partner of consultancy World Steel Dynamics, at an industry conference in Shanghai on Saturday. “The low prices we reached in late-2015 are not going to be repeated. That was a one-time event.’’