US steel imports finish 2025 down 12 percent

The volume of semifinished and finished steel imported into the United States in 2025 shrank by 12.2 percent, according to Commerce Department statistics collated by the Washington-based American Iron and Steel Institute (AISI).

According to AISI, imports into the U.S. last year were more than 25.3 million tons for finished and semifinished steel combined.

Finished steel imports in 2025 measured about 18.7 million tons, down 16.8 percent compared with 2024. That annual total uses a Steel Import Monitoring and Analysis (SIMA) permits figure for December finished steel imports, which is subject to minor adjustments.

In 2025, the nations with the highest import volumes as represented by steel import permit applications were Canada (more than 4.5 million tons, down 31 percent), Brazil (nearly 4.1 million tons, down 9 percent) and Mexico (more than 2.87 million tons, down 18 percent).

Although Canada and Mexico are part of the United States-Mexico-Canada Agreement with the U.S., the Trump administration removed existing steel import tariff exemptions for those countries in early 2025 and increased those tariffs from 25 percent to 50 percent last summer. 

The policy led to U.S. mill output that increased steadily in 2025, with domestic steelmakers finishing the year having made 3.4 percent more crude steel compared with 2024. The policy also seemed to contribute to profitable conditions for recycled-content steelmakers in the U.S. last year.

A breakdown of steel imports by product category and nation released by AISI in late January shows only a few exceptions to declining levels of steel imports in the U.S. last year.

From January through November 2025, two of the only steel categories with rising import levels were blooms, billets and slabs (up 2 percent) and oil country goods (up15.9 percent). Hot-rolled, cold-rolled and several types of bar steel all were imported at lower volumes last year compared with 2024.

In addition to Brazil, Canada and Mexico, Japan and Vietnam also shipped a double-digit percentage less steel to the U.S. last year compared with 2024.

Despite the tariffs, South Korea’s volume of steel shipped dropped by just 4.1 percent, while producers in Germany and Taiwan shipped more steel to the U.S. last year than they did the year before.

Although China and India are among the world’s largest steel producers, neither nation enjoyed robust access to the U.S. market in 2025.

After 11 months, China was the 10^th largest supplier of imported steel to the U.S. (shipping 444,000 tons) and India was 15^th (shipping 223,00 tons).  While China’s shipments dropped by more than 13 percent in that time frame, India’s rose by more than 128 percent compared with the first 11 months of 2024.