Following the unilateral raising on 23 March of US customs duties on imports of steel and aluminium, the European Commission launched a safeguard investigation on Monday 26 March in order to prevent the diversion to the EU market of world steel exports intended for the US market.
While the EU is exempt from the tariffs of 25% on imports of steel and of 10% on imports of aluminium – as are Australia, Argentina, Brazil and South Korea, in addition to Canada and Mexico (see other article) – the Commission fears that some of the production of the big steel exporters such as China, India, Russia or Turkey may no longer be able to have access to the US market and may be diverted to the European market, penalising the steel sector.
The investigation was requested by Eurofer, the European association of iron and steel industries, and will cover 27 categories of steel products, taking up to nine months. The investigation could result in the EU imposing its own customs duties or quotas on imports of steel, which would be applied to all countries.
If they proved necessary, provisional measures could be adopted in a short space of time. Safeguard measures are one of the trade defence tools recognised by the WTO.
In force since March 2016, the monitoring system for steel imports into the EU has provided evidence that imports of certain steel products onto the European market have increased considerably recently. This trend could be accentuated by the restrictions to access to the US market, which risk exports being re-directed towards Europe. This would disrupt the market and distort prices, the Commission states.
Total steel imports into the EU exceeded 17.8 million tonnes between 2013 and 2017, mainly due to global overcapacity and measures taken by third countries to fight against dumping.
US steel accounts for less than 1% of EU steel imports. (Original version in French by Emmanuel Hagry)