The Trump administration doubled tariffs on steel imports and added hundreds of derivative steel products to Section 232 tariffs.
United States Trade Ambassador Jamieson Geer called on America’s partners to follow U.S. action in countering Chinese steel overcapacity, in a virtual address before the Global Forum on Steel Excess Capacity (GFSEC) on Oct. 10.
“It’s clearly evident that current international trade rules are inadequate to discipline the policies and practices that have caused this crisis or to find a solution,” Greer said. “I also question the political will of foreign members to take action to fill the gaps in the existing rule set.”
As the GFSEC, a platform comprised of 28 major steelmaking economies, notes in its own Ministerial Statement from the Oct. 10 meeting, global steel overcapacity is “expected to rise from 601 million tonnes in 2024 to 721 million tonnes by 2027, reaching its highest level in a decade and exceeding the current combined production of GFSEC members by 248 million tonnes.”
Indeed, the Organisation for Economic Co-operation and Development finds in its 2025 Steel Outlook Report that Asian economies are responsible for 60% of capacity additions projected during 2025-27, though global steel demand is barely rising.
Under both the Trump and Biden administrations, the United States has fought back against China’s rampant excess steel production. In May 2024, President Biden increased tariffs on certain steel and aluminum imports from 0-7.5% to 25%. In June this year, President Trump doubled those tariffs to a 50% tariff rate and in August added 407 product categories to the list of derivative steel and aluminum products covered by Section 232 tariffs.
“The United States has taken effective actions to address excess capacity in the U.S. market, including actions on direct and indirect steel imports from countries with overcapacity,” Greer said. “However, China’s exports continue to displace steel producers globally, resulting in trade diversion to the U.S. market and lost export opportunities for our manufacturers. Similar trade actions by like-minded partners are needed to more fully address excess capacity and the global market distortions it causes. These actions do not need to look exactly like the actions taken by the United States, but they should have an equivalent restrictive.”
At its Ministerial Meeting on Oct. 10, the GFSEC committed to begin developing “the foundation for a comprehensive framework for joint action to address the global steel crisis” at the forum’s meeting in November with the aim of coming to agreement by June 2026.
Meanwhile, U.S. allies are individually responding to global steel overcapacity. Last week, the European Union announced plans to increase tariffs on excess imports from 25% to 50%. And, Mexico is still preparing its own tariffs of as much as 50% on Chinese steel, as well as more than 1,400 other product categories from China and other Asian exporters.
This growing international alignment on countering China’s decades-long excess steel capacity is exactly what’s needed to fully signal that the Asian nation’s non-market practices and policies will no longer be tolerated. The United States is far from the only economy to feel the pain that this overcapacity has wrought, nor should it be only one to fight back.