16-07-2025
Carney cracks down further on cheap steel imports into Canada in bid to protect domestic mills
Ottawa is cracking down further on imports of foreign steel into Canada to help Canadian mills that have effectively been shut out of the U.S. market by President Donald Trump's tariffs.
Less than a month ago, the federal government announced that countries such as China and Turkey that don't have free trade agreements with Canada will face tariffs of 50 per cent if they ship into Canada volumes above 2024 levels.
Prime Minister Mark Carney at a steel manufacturing plant in Hamilton announced that he is tightening that quota now to 50 per cent of 2024 levels.
Carney changes messaging, says chances are low for tariff-free trade deal with U.S.
In addition, countries that have free-trade agreements with Canada, apart from the U.S., will be subject to a tariff of 50 per cent if they ship more than 100 per cent of 2024 volumes of steel into Canada.
Mr. Carney is taking the additional trade measures after the steel industry made it clear that the trade measures his government took in June were not enough to protect Canadian steel mills from an avalanche of cheap metal flooding into the country.
The government has acknowledged that the global steel tariff of 50 per cent imposed by Mr. Trump creates an environment where foreign steel producers are motivated to divert shipments formerly destined for the U.S. market to Canada. That dynamic hurts Canadian steel mills because those producers are often selling metal into Canada at artificially low levels.
Canadian steelmakers such as Algoma Steel Group Inc. say that countries such as Vietnam, Malaysia and Korea, which have free-trade agreements with Canada, routinely dump steel into Canada.
Steel producers warn of dire consequences of 50% tariff if broader U.S. trade deal isn't reached
Before Mr. Trump imposed 25-per-cent tariffs on the steel sector in March, Canadian steelmakers shipped about half of their output, representing almost all of their exports, to the U.S. After Mr. Trump doubled the tariff to 50 per cent last month, domestic steel mills have been shut out of the U.S. To make up for the huge drop in revenue, Canadian steel companies have been trying to sell more steel in Canada. But owing to dumping by foreign steelmakers into Canada that has been a difficult task.
EVRAZ North America and Welded Tube of Canada on Wednesday announced they have filed an antidumping duty complaint with the Canada Border Services Agency, targeting unfairly priced imports of certain steel tube and pipe products originating from Mexico, the Philippines, as well as from Turkish and Korean producers. The two steelmakers in a statement alleged the imports are being sold into the Canadian market 'at unfairly low prices, causing significant and ongoing injury to Canadian manufacturers.'
