Industrial Policy & Trade Monitor· 2663 actions· ✨ 89 recent

On 13 April 2026 the Council of the EU and the European Parliament reached a provisional political agreement, in trilogue with the Commission, on the new EU steel safeguard regulation that will replace the existing WTO-safeguard-based measure (Regulation (EU) 2019/159, last tightened by Implementing Regulation 2025/612) expiring on 30 June 2026. The agreement adopts the core architecture of the Commission's October 2025 proposal (procedure 2025/0726(COD)): an overall duty-free tariff-rate quota of approximately 18.3 million tonnes per year — a roughly 47% reduction versus the 2024 safeguard quotas — covering 30 product categories, with the out-of-quota customs duty raised from 25% to 50%. The deal also introduces a mandatory "country of melt and pour" declaratory requirement on steel imports and obliges the Commission to assess, within two years, whether the country of melt-and-pour should become the basis for country-specific TRQ allocations (closing transhipment loopholes that have allowed Chinese-melted steel to enter via third-country processors). The co-legislators added a reinforced and time-bound review mechanism: a first Commission review of product scope within six months of entry into force, with subsequent biennial scope reviews thereafter. Statutorily, this is a NEW instrument — a regulation adopted under the ordinary legislative procedure, not an implementing act under the WTO Agreement on Safeguards / Regulation (EU) 2015/478 — so it is filed as a new action with a `responds_to` link to the predecessor regime. Formal adoption by Council and EP plenary is expected in May 2026 ahead of the 1 July 2026 application date.

The Ministry of Finance, Department of Revenue (Central Board of Indirect Taxes and Customs) issued Notification No. 02/2025-Customs (SG) dated 30 December 2025, imposing a definitive three-year safeguard duty on imports of "Non-Alloy and Alloy Steel Flat Products" classified under Customs Tariff headings 7208, 7209, 7210, 7211, 7212, 7225 and 7226 (hot-rolled coils/sheets/plates, hot-rolled plate-mill plates, cold-rolled coils/sheets, metallic coated sheets including galvanneal and aluminium-zinc coated, and colour-coated coils/sheets). Duty rates are graduated: 12% ad valorem for 21 April 2025 – 20 April 2026, 11.5% for 21 April 2026 – 20 April 2027, and 11% for 21 April 2027 – 20 April 2028. The notification implements the final findings of the Director General (Trade Remedies) (DGTR notification 22/01/2024-DGTR dated 16 August 2025) which concluded that imports of subject goods rose from 2.293 mt in FY 2021-22 to 6.612 mt during the period of investigation, causing serious injury and threat of serious injury to the domestic industry. The definitive measure supersedes the provisional 200-day safeguard duty imposed at 12% ad valorem from 21 April 2025 by Notification 01/2025-Customs (SG); no safeguard duty applies for the interim period between expiry of the provisional duty (early November 2025) and the day preceding Gazette publication of the definitive notification. Imports from developing-country WTO members are exempt unless the share of any individual developing country exceeds 3% of total imports of the subject goods, or the collective share of developing countries exceeding 3% individually exceeds 9% — the China and Vietnam carve-outs from this exemption preserve full applicability of the duty to the dominant cheap-import sources.

The Ministry of Finance, Department of Revenue (Central Board of Indirect Taxes and Customs) issued Notification No. 35/2025-Customs (ADD) dated 18 December 2025, imposing a definitive five-year anti-dumping duty on imports of Cold Rolled Non-Oriented Electrical Steel (CRNO) originating in or exported from the People's Republic of China, falling under tariff headings 7210, 7225 and 7226 of the First Schedule to the Customs Tariff Act 1975. Duty rates are specific: USD 223.82 per metric tonne for Wuhan Iron & Steel Co., Ltd., Baosteel Zhanjiang Iron & Steel Co., Ltd., and Baoshan Iron & Steel Co., Ltd., and USD 414.92 per metric tonne for all other Chinese producers/exporters. The measure implements the DGTR final findings F.No. 06/32/2024-DGTR dated 19 September 2025 (JSW Steel and Tata Steel principal domestic complainants), which found dumping margins and material injury to the Indian domestic industry. Cold-rolled fully hardened silicon electrical steel (CRFH), the upstream feedstock used to produce CRNO, is explicitly excluded from the duty. CRNO is a critical input for electric motors, transformers, generators and EV traction motors — its dumping into India underpinned a complaint from integrated mills (JSW, Tata) competing against Chinese supply at margins below construction-cost-plus-reasonable-profit benchmarks.

The MoEFCC Impact Assessment Division issued an Office Memorandum on 8 September 2025 categorically exempting all mining projects involving atomic minerals (uranium, thorium and the 12 minerals under the Atomic Energy Act 1962), the 30 critical minerals notified by the Ministry of Mines on 28 June 2023, and separately designated strategic minerals from the mandatory public-consultation stage (para 7(i)) of the EIA Notification 2006, invoking the existing national-defence and strategic-considerations clause. Exempted projects will instead undergo comprehensive appraisal by the relevant Sectoral Expert Appraisal Committee (SEAC/EAC) at the central level regardless of project size, bypassing the standard Category-A/B thresholding architecture. The measure was issued in response to formal requests from the Ministry of Defence (MoD) and the Department of Atomic Energy (DAE), and directly accelerates the approval pipeline for the National Critical Mineral Mission (Rs 34,300 crore, 2025-2031).

Commission Implementing Regulation (EU) 2025/612 of 24 March 2025 amends the EU steel safeguard regime first imposed by Regulation (EU) 2019/159, materially tightening the tariff-rate quota (TRQ) system that governs imports across 26 product categories of finished and semi-finished steel. The Commission cuts the annual liberalisation rate (the volume by which TRQs grow each year) from 1% to 0.1%, effectively freezing the in-quota volumes available to third-country exporters at near-current levels through the safeguard's expiry on 30 June 2026. The regulation also repeals the carry-over mechanism that previously allowed unused quarterly TRQ volumes to roll into the next quarter for product categories under significant import pressure, and eliminates the ability of exporting countries to access the residual (other-country) quota in the final quarter of each safeguard year for those categories. The latter change forecloses the route by which Chinese, Indian, Turkish, Korean and Vietnamese mills had increasingly back-filled into unused Russian and Belarusian quota allocations after the 2022 sanctions disruption. Most adjustments enter into force on 1 April 2025; the slower liberalisation pace and the carry-over removal in the most pressured categories take effect 1 July 2025. The measure is the headline trade-policy deliverable of the European Steel and Metals Action Plan unveiled by the Commission on 19 March 2025, and it is explicitly framed as a defensive response to (i) global overcapacity in Chinese steel and (ii) anticipated trade diversion into the EU after the United States reinstated universal 25% Section 232 steel/aluminum tariffs on 12 March 2025. Above-quota imports remain subject to the 25% out-of-quota duty inherited from the 2019 safeguard.

The Türkiye Ministry of Trade's Imports General Directorate published Communiqué No. 2024/33 in Resmî Gazete No. 32689 on 11 October 2024, imposing definitive ad valorem anti-dumping duties on hot-rolled flat steel products originating in the People's Republic of China, India, Japan and the Russian Federation. Duties range from 6.10% to 43.31% CIF and run for a five-year initial term from the date of publication, subject to interim or expiry review. The measure covers roughly 90 tariff lines under CN/HS chapters 7208, 7211, 7212, 7225 and 7226 — the principal hot-rolled flat-steel customs codes. China-origin producers face the widest dispersion (residual 43.31% on unsampled producers, named-producer rates 15–36%); Japan applies a flat 9% to all producers; India and Russia residuals sit at 9% with named- producer rates as low as 6.0–6.10%. Imports of "plate rolled in a plate mill" accompanied by a Producer's Certificate under Notice 2002/1 are exempt. The petition was filed by TÇÜD (Türkiye Çelik Üreticileri Derneği — Turkish Steel Producers' Association) on behalf of integrated mills Erdemir, İsdemir, Çolakoğlu, Habaş and Tosçelik, and addresses Chinese HRC diversion to the Türkiye market following US Section 232 steel tariffs and EU CBAM/safeguard tightening.

Regulation (EU) 2023/956 of the European Parliament and of the Council, published in OJ L 130 on 16 May 2023 and entering into force on 17 May 2023, establishes the EU Carbon Border Adjustment Mechanism (CBAM) — the Union's primary instrument for preventing carbon leakage at the external border. The regulation applies an equivalent carbon price to embedded greenhouse gas emissions in imports of six sector groups (iron and steel, aluminium, cement, fertilizers, electricity, and hydrogen) from non-EU/EEA/Swiss counterparts, complementing the EU Emissions Trading System's domestic coverage. A transitional reporting-only phase operated from 1 October 2023 through 31 December 2025; the definitive certificate-purchase-and-surrender regime entered full application from 1 January 2026.

The Union Cabinet approved the Production Linked Incentive (PLI) Scheme for Specialty Steel on 22 July 2021; the scheme was notified in the Gazette of India on 29 July 2021 by the Ministry of Steel and detailed scheme guidelines were published on 20 October 2021. Total outlay: Rs 6,322 crore (~USD 850m) over five years (FY 2024-25 through FY 2028-29). The scheme covers five product categories (coated/plated products, high-strength / wear-resistant steel, specialty rails, alloy steel and steel wires, and electrical steel) across 19 sub-categories, and offers incentives of 4-12% on incremental sales for end-to-end domestic specialty-steel production with melted-and-poured input requirement. PLI 1.1 reopened applications on 6 January 2025; PLI 1.2 (third round) was launched in 2025-2026 with a revised four-category / 22-sub-category structure and incentive rates up to 15%.