According to sources cited by Bloomberg, the U.S. and the EU are debating specifics of import levies on steel. They claim that the increased taxes are primarily intended to curtail China’s « excessive » and insufficiently environmentally friendly steel manufacturing.

The parties have not yet come to an agreement over the scope of the duties, the nations they will affect, and a few other specifics. However, a new deal is anticipated by October 31.

The conversations are related to a deal on steel and aluminum tariffs that the US and the EU came to in 2021. In order to stop the practice of importing Chinese steel into the US through the EU, the US started allowing limited duty-free imports of goods from the EU in 2021 as long as they were made in Europe. That choice was only temporary, and the parties committed to negotiate a long-term arrangement by October 2023. Now, sources claim that only new emergency measures will likely be implemented in October, with the creation of a long-term solution continuing.

The demand for ecologically friendly steel production is now one of the issues at hand. China, which produces more than half of the world’s steel and frequently does not adhere to environmental rules, will be the country most impacted by this. The US itself, unlike the EU, does not have a well-established methodology for estimating the hazardous emissions of its own steel mills, which among other things slows down a new resolution.

source: bloomberg.com