US ranks as third-largest export market for steel

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In the first three quarters of 2024, the export value of steel to the US was higher than the previous year. This means the US ranks as the third-largest export market for Dutch steel, with a 9 percent share. The Netherlands exported 0.7 billion euros’ worth of steel to the US during that period. Statistics Netherlands (CBS) reports this on the basis of the latest figures.
In the first three quarters of 2024, the Netherlands exported a total of 7.4 billion euros’ worth of steel. Sixty-four percent of this consisted of rolled flat iron and steel products; for the US, the share was 91 percent. The US is the third-largest export market for these products after Germany and Belgium, with 13 percent of the export value.


Netherlands twelfth-largest supplier of steel (products) to the US

In total, the US imported 50 billion dollars’ worth of iron and steel (products) in 2024. With exports to the US totalling 0.9 billion dollars, the Netherlands had a 1.9 percent share in total US imports of iron and steel (products), making the Netherlands the twelfth-largest supplier of these goods to the US. The largest suppliers were Canada (18 percent), Mexico (12 percent) and China (11 percent).


Steel exports to the US declined after sanctions in 2018

In 2018, the US imposed import tariffs on foreign steel. In the two years that followed, fewer sanctioned steel products were exported to the US: by 2020, exports were down by 29 percent relative to 2018. The export value of goods subject to the 2018 sanctions peaked in 2022 at 935 million euros: around 50 percent higher than the value of exports in 2018. By then, average prices were 67 percent higher than four years earlier.

In 2022, import tariffs were replaced by a tariff-free quota, meaning that the first 3.3 million tonnes of steel from the EU were imported at a zero percent tariff.


Dutch share in US steel imports has returned to its 2016 level

From 2015 to 2024, the Dutch share of total US imports of iron and steel (products) was fairly stable. In 2024, it returned to its 2016 level of 1.9 percent, after a slight decline in the intervening period. In the US, Dutch steel is used for high-quality packaging, lifting cranes and excavators, among other things.

Total US steel imports have varied since 2015. They increased between 2016 and 2018, and then decreased after the first additional import tariffs were imposed in 2018. After 2020, imports increased again, partly due to higher prices and partly because import tariffs expired in October 2021.

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