Biden officially extends EU tariff breaks until 2025

US President Joe Biden has extended the suspension of tariffs on steel and aluminum smelted and cast in EU member states until December 31, 2025.
According to the President's plan, outlined in full on the White House website, EU steel and aluminum products would be subject to a "tariff rate quota (TRQ), which limits the amount of steel products imported into the United States from the EU without the application of a tariff."

The US and EU agreed on a TRQ of 3.3 million tonnes.

“This volume corresponds to the goal of achieving and maintaining a sufficient level of capacity utilization of the domestic steel industry,” the presidential decree says.

The TRQ measures replace the 25% tariff imposed on EU steel as discussions continue over the Global Agreement on Sustainable Steel and Aluminum.

“Over the past two years, the United States and the EU have made significant progress in identifying the sources of non-market excess capacity and the actions needed to eliminate distortions resulting from this non-market excess capacity. The United States and the EU continue to negotiate global steel and aluminum agreements to restore market conditions in their steel and aluminum sectors and support reductions in the greenhouse gas emissions intensity of steel and aluminum across all modes of production,” Biden states.

In a statement from the American Iron and Steel Institute (AISI), President and CEO Kevin Dempsey shared his approval of Biden's announcement.

“AISI welcomes the Biden Administration's action today to extend EU steel tariff rates for two years to allow additional time for negotiations on the proposed Global Agreement on Sustainable Steel and Aluminum. The U.S. steel industry strongly supports the Administration's efforts to create new mechanisms to effectively address global non-market steel overcapacity and the higher carbon intensity of imported steel relative to pure U.S. steel,” AISI Dempsey said in a statement.

Earlier this month, the EU agreed to suspend retaliation against US Section 232 tariffs until March 31, 2025.