China's steel exports face rising trade barriers as antidumping cases surge

Growing trade barriers against Chinese steel are expected to start impacting exports toward late 2025 with the pressure seen rising in 2026 as several cases are either under investigation or in the pipeline, steel industry participants told Platts, part of S&P Global Commodity Insights.

China saw about 29 major steel trade cases filed against it between early 2024 and February 2025, far above the 15 during 2020-2023, according to data from Platts and the China Iron & Steel Association.

Between January and February 2025, Vietnam, South Korea, Colombia, the EU and Malaysia imposed antidumping duties on certain Chinese steel products. These duties affect about 5 million mt/year of steel imports into these countries from China, according to market sources and data from S&P Global Market Intelligence's Global Trade Analytics Suite.

China exported 9.03 million mt of HRC to Vietnam in 2024, up 37% on the year, the GTAS data showed. However, as Vietnam's antidumping duties will not be imposed on reexports, and no duties are on HRC wider than 1,880 mm, these duties will affect China's HRC exports in the range of 3 million mt/year, some market participants said.

In addition, 19 more trade cases, mainly antidumping duties, from 14 countries and regions against Chinese steel are currently under investigation. If all cases lead to the imposition of import duties, about 9.44 million mt/year of China's steel exports will be affected, according to the GTAS data.

"China's steel exports are almost certainly going to fall in 2025, given all these trade conflicts ... but the exports could still [be in the range of] 100 million mt in 2025, as the decline will be a gradual process," said a China-based trader.

China's exports of semifinished and finished steel in 2024 hit an all-time high of 117.055 million mt, up 25.1%, or 23.511 million mt, year over year, Chinese customs data showed.

"I'm more worried about steel exports in 2026, as I believe there will be more antidumping cases against Chinese steel in the future, which will exert greater downward pressure on China's steel exports in 2026 than in 2025," said another trading source.

The downturn in China's property sector is the core reason behind sluggish domestic steel demand and surging exports. The rising exports have not prevented the steel industry's profit decline amid weak domestic demand; instead, they have led to a surge in trade frictions.

According to CISA data, the aggregate profit made by its member steel mills in 2024 fell 50.3% to Yuan 42.9 billion ($5.92 billion).

Capacity, production

"Strong exports cannot be sustained for long ... in the backdrop of declining domestic demand, the steel industry has also been studying capacity reduction measures. But this is expected to be a lengthy process, and there are unlikely to be any actual capacity reduction actions in the short term," said a mill source.

In contrast to the all-time high steel exports in 2024, China's domestic apparent steel consumption in 2024 fell to a six-year low of 892.87 million mt, also down 4.8% on the year and 10.2% from 2021 when the property market peaked, according to calculations by Commodity Insights based on data from the National Bureau of Statistics, the customs and CISA.

Apparent consumption is equal to domestic crude steel output minus net exports, plus a decrease in steel inventory. It reflects the amount of steel consumed domestically.

China's daily crude steel output in the first quarter is likely to rebound from the average of 2.57 million mt/d in the fourth quarter of 2024 but will remain slightly lower than the year-ago level of 2.82 million mt/d, according to some sources and NBS data.

Lower domestic demand, especially for construction steel, could still lead to higher steel exports in Q1 from a year ago, sources added.