US details EU quotas; Netherlands, Germany big winners

The US Department of Commerce’s Bureau of Industry and Security (BIS) has published detailed tariff-free quotas for European steel applicable from 2022. This is part of the new bilateral agreement between the US and EU regarding Section 232 measures.

As anticipated, overall, European mills will have the possibility to sell into the US 3.3 million tonne/year of steel goods without having to pay tariffs linked to S232 measures. The quotas have been assigned on a country-specific level under more than 50 different sub-categories for specific products, on the base of historical export levels.

In addition to these volumes, suppliers will continue to be able to sell the products previously exempted from the measures, Kallanish notes.

In the rebar segment, for example, Portugal, Spain and Italy have been allocated the majority of quotas, being historically the most active European exporters of such products to the US.

In the flat products and coil sector, on the other hand, the Netherlands and Germany were assigned the largest share of quotas.

The largest quota assignment for a specific country and product has been for tinplate produced in the Netherlands – over 195,000 t/y of quotas – followed closely by German-origin tinplate with over 121,000 t/y.

Emanuele Norsa Italy