EU steel exports to US fall 30% under 50% tariffs

European steelmakers are discovering what “rules-based order” means when the rulebook is written in Washington.

EU steel exports to the United States fell 30% in 2025 after the US imposed a 50% tariff regime, according to Eurostat data compiled by Eurofer and cited by Euronews. The drop covers June–December 2025 versus the same period a year earlier—essentially a six‑month stress test of how quickly trade flows reroute when a single market decides to make foreign input uneconomic.

The tariff shock is notable because it sits awkwardly alongside a broader EU‑US trade agreement reached in July 2025. That deal set a blanket 15% US tariff on EU goods while the EU agreed to cut its tariffs on US goods to zero. Steel and aluminium were carved out. “Free trade,” but only for the sectors that don’t annoy domestic constituencies.

Washington framed the 50% duties—introduced in June 2025 and expanded in August to more than 400 steel and aluminium products—as protection against Chinese overcapacity spilling into Western markets, Euronews reports. Yet the policy’s practical effect is to force European producers and their downstream customers (machinery, fabricated products, and other steel-intensive exports) to reprice supply chains, shift margins across borders, and hunt exemptions. Eurofer director general Axel Eggert warned that the US decision to include downstream steel products will compound the damage.

Brussels is trying to reopen negotiations for tariff relief, but the US has tied talks to the EU implementing the July deal—an implementation that still requires approval through the EU’s legislative machinery. The European Parliament is expected to vote in March, after which member states negotiate, per Euronews. This is the EU’s signature vulnerability: it can promise “strategic autonomy” in press releases while needing multiple veto points to do anything on schedule.

Meanwhile, the Commission has proposed its own defensive turn: halving the volume of steel allowed into the bloc duty-free and applying a 50% tariff above a quota of 18.3 million tonnes per year, according to Euronews. The stated rationale is that Chinese exports redirected from the US are increasingly landing in Europe. The unstated rationale is that once one side normalizes emergency tariffs, the other side’s “response” becomes inevitable—and the tariff economy becomes permanent.

Steel isn’t special; sovereignty is. When governments decide trade is a security issue, “market access” becomes a revocable license. Firms can either internalize that political risk—diversifying markets, relocating finishing steps, or vertically integrating where possible—or keep lobbying for relief from the same officials who created the problem. The first option is capitalism. The second is industrial policy theatre.