Any EU-US trade agreement must result in “balanced market conditions” for industry in both jurisdictions, says Eurofer, with discussions on the EU-US trade agreement due to take place in the European Parliament’s International Trade Committee (INTA) on Tuesday. This comes after data showed EU steel exports to the US plunged 30% on-year in the second half of 2025.
“A 30% drop in steel exports to the US within just six months is a clear signal that the blunt 50% tariffs imposed by the US government on EU steel are damaging our industry. The US decision to include EU downstream steel products, such as machinery, will have another huge negative impact on us and our European customers,” Eurofer director general Axel Eggert says in a note sent to Kallanish.
The EU-US deal must be “fair, reciprocal and enforceable,” Eggert notes. “But so far, we are still waiting to hear whether the arrangement will secure meaningful EU steel access to the US market or a joint response to global steel overcapacity.”
According to the latest available Eurostat data verified by Kallanish, EU steel exports to the US of finished carbon steel – excluding pipe – under HS code headings 7208-7217 fell 37% on-year in July-November 2025 to 503,659 tonnes. Overall exports of chapter 72 iron and steel fell 30% to 1.05 million tonnes.
Eurofer says the steel industry welcomes recent proposals in the European Parliament to introduce review and response mechanisms within the EU-US arrangement to ensure that European industry can respond if tariff levels remain elevated or increase in the future.
While the new steel trade regime should be in place from 1 July, steel intensive downstream products must also be shielded from trade diversion and global overcapacity, it adds. The risk of trade diversion through steel-intensive downstream products has increased significantly over the past decade, Eurofer concludes.
