CECE welcomes the EU-US Agreement on Steel and Aluminium

We hail with great enthusiasm the decision of the US not to apply section 232 tariffs, which will allow duty-free import of steel and aluminium from the EU at a historical-based volume. In parallel, we salute the EU’s commitment to suspend the rebalancing measures in the form of tariffs on U.S. products.

US tariffs have been in place since June 2018 when the Trump administration introduced tariffs on €6.4 billion of European steel and aluminium exports, and further tariffs in January 2020 that affected around €40 million of EU exports of certain derivative steel and aluminium products.

In its retaliation, the EU introduced rebalancing measures in June 2018 on US exports to the EU in a value of €2.8 billion. The remaining rebalancing measures, affecting exports valued up to €3.6 billion, were scheduled to enter into force on 1 June 2021 but the EU suspended these measures until 1 December 2021 in order to give space for the parties to work together on a longer-term solution. With this new agreement of 31 October, these measures will not be introduced.

It is also worth reminding that in July 2018 the EU introduced steel safeguard measures to protect the EU steel market from trade diversion caused by the US tariffs. Since their entry into force, CECE voiced its opposition to these steel safeguard measures with a coalition of steel users, as these measures limit the amount of steel from third countries available in the EU. This evidently contributes to surge in steel prices, to the detriment of downstream users and final consumers. It is now time for the EU to end the steel safeguard measures and go back to a normal situation prior to these protectionist measures.

CECE salutes the decision to suspend the bilateral World Trade Organization disputes on steel and aluminium and considers wise the joint effort of the EU and the US to solve common issues related to the steel and aluminium markets through cooperation. 

Finally, we welcome with great enthusiasm the new approach of the US administration who breaks away from the practices of the previous administration and are grateful to the European Commission for having made this agreement possible.