Brazilian industry hopes dialog can reverse US steel tax
The Brazil Steel Institute and the National Confederation of Industry (CNI) believe in dialog to reverse the US decision to set a 25 percent import tax on steel regardless of origin. The decision greatly affects Brazil, as the US is the main foreign market for Brazilian steel.
The Brazil Steel Institute, which represents the nation’s steelmakers, said it was surprised by the US decision, but said it was confident in the opening of dialogue between the governments of the two countries to re-establish the flow of steel products to the US on the basis of the agreement signed in 2018, during Donald Trump’s first term.
The 2018 agreement, the institute pointed out, had established export quotas for the US market of 3.5 million tons of semi-finished products and plates and 687 thousand tons of rolled products.
“This measure had relaxed President Donald Trump’s previous decision to set a 25 percent import tariff on steel. It is important to note that the negotiation that took place in 2018 served not only Brazil’s interest in preserving access to its main foreign steel market, but also the interest of the US steel industry, which uses Brazilian slabs,” the institute’s note reads.
According to the institute, taxing the product impacts not only Brazilian industry, but also the US economy itself, since it depends on imports of the product.
Brazil supplied 60.7 percent of US steel plate import demand in 2024, the organization reported. Last year, the US had to import 5.6 million tons of the product because it did not have enough domestic supply. Of this total, 3.4 million tons were exported by Brazil.
The Brazilian market, the institute went on, “has also been plagued by a sharp surge in imports from countries that practice predatory competition—especially China.”
The organization also reported that, in the balance of trade for the main items in the steel chain—coal, steel, machinery, and equipment—worth $7.6 billion, the US has a surplus of $3 billion, i.e. it sells more than twice as much as it buys from Brazil.
Confederation of Industry
CNI, which represents Brazilian industries as a whole, said it continues to seek dialog to reverse the decision. The confederation argued that the US is the destination of 54 percent of Brazilian iron and steel exports, with Brazil being the fourth largest supplier of these products to the Americans.
