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ARTICLE · 25 AUGUST 2026

Price: A Whirlwind Year For Trade Sets Up A Consequential Steel Summit

The Trump administration's evolving trade policy has transformed US steel protections over the past year, moving from contested IEEPA tariffs to a complex structure built around Sections 232, 301, and other established trade statutes. As global steel overcapacity reaches 640 million metric tons and enforcement mechanisms strengthen, the question is no longer whether tariffs will remain, but how they will be refined and enforced to support domestic manufacturing.

GlobalInternational Law

This article was originally published in Steel Market Update on August 22, 2026, and can be found here.

The SMU Steel Summit kicks off on Monday in Atlanta, and we could spend the entire time just discussing trade developments since the last Summit.

Remember where we were at this time last year? At the 2025 Summit, the second Trump administration was once again rewriting the rules of US trade policy.

Section 232 steel tariffs were upped to 50%. Country exemptions and tariff-rate quotas had been eliminated. Hundreds of derivative steel products had been brought within the program. And the administration’s expansive use of the International Emergency Economic Powers Act, or IEEPA, had placed tariffs at the center of nearly every major trade negotiation.

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