7 April 2026 – The US government last week announced adjustments to its Section 232 tariffs, affecting in particular derivatives of steel, aluminium, and copper. CBAM: from climate protection to steel protectionism – how the EU steel lobby is pushing for the closure of the domestic market.
US Tariffs on Steel, Aluminium, and Copper: Section 232 Overhauled
The US government last week announced adjustments to its Section 232 tariffs, affecting in particular derivatives of steel, aluminium, and copper. The existing system, under which a 50% tariff was levied on the metal content of imported goods, is being completely overhauled.
Flat-Rate Tariff Replaces Metal-Content Calculation
Going forward, a flat tariff of 25% on the customs value will be levied on imported products that contain metal but do not themselves fall within the scope of Section 232 as primary materials. The US government expects this change to deliver not only a reduction in administrative burden for customs authorities, but also significantly higher revenues (White House, April 2026).
Protectionism Ultimately Harms Everyone
We are fundamentally opposed to restricting the free trade in goods and services through tariffs or other regulatory interventions. The role of policy should rather be to create the conditions under which industry can thrive without recourse to protectionism or trade defence measures. Anything else leads to competitive distortions – and ultimately to higher costs for consumers.
CBAM: From Climate Protection to Steel Protectionism
That the EU’s CO2 tax CBAM in its current form was never designed as a climate protection instrument but conceived from the outset as one-sided industrial protectionism should by now be clear even to the last sceptic. As early as 2020, the then-leader of Bündnis 90/Die Grünen and later German Foreign Minister Annalena Baerbock publicly acknowledged that CBAM ultimately amounted to a market protection measure (ZDF Lanz, August 2020).
EUROFER Pushes for Expansion
The planned extension of CBAM to downstream products, and the demands put forward by the European steel producers’ association EUROFER in this regard, confirm this assessment: the domestic market is to be further shielded, and steel processors and consumers are to be effectively steered towards purchasing European steel.
EUROFER’s latest position paper reads accordingly like a maximum-demand catalogue from an industry primarily seeking to secure market share and permanently lock in customers to EU steel. What the paper conspicuously lacks is any honest reckoning with the industry’s own responsibility for a decarbonisation process that has been deferred for decades, with the costs imposed on steel buyers in the automotive, construction, and mechanical engineering sectors, and with the foreign policy consequences for the European economy.
Risks for Competitiveness and SME
The interplay between the continuing free allocation of ETS allowances, the threatened downstream expansion, and the one-sided burden placed on trading partners carries significant risks – for the competitiveness of European processing industries, for the EU’s credibility as a rules-based trading partner, and for global climate cooperation.
Small and medium-sized enterprises would be particularly affected: an extension of CBAM would saddle them with considerable bureaucratic burdens and massive cost increases. The situation is made worse by the fact that no reliable impact assessment yet exists of how CBAM actually affects consumer prices, downstream industries, and emerging economies.
WTO Conformity at Risk
There is also a trade policy dimension: the EUROFER proposals represent a frontal assault on CBAM’s conformity with WTO rules. Europe’s export-oriented economy would thereby run the risk of being hit by further trade policy countermeasures – a risk entirely disproportionate to the supposed protective benefit for the steel industry.
Latest news
We at the Gerber Group have been trading in stainless steel worldwide for over 20 years. We are your experts when it comes to purchasing, import, logistics and services. Information is a vital part of this. Because only then can you and we make the right decisions. Do you have any questions? Contact us now.
Disclaimer: Many things here represent our opinion. Others are information from the Internet. We can therefore never claim to be correct or complete. And never base a business decision solely on the news you receive from us.
