Podcast: US steel market experiences supply constraints

Supply constraints resulting from the United States’ Section 232 import tariffs are providing support for long steel product prices, MEPS’s latest Market in Minutes podcast reveals.

Drawing on insight gathered during research for MEPS’s International Steel Review, this 15-minute podcast shares insight into steel supply and demand in the US steel market. It also summarises recent steel price movements and provides an outlook detailing key market trends in the months ahead. 

US steel market analyst Laura Hodges joins managing editor Tom Sharpe in this episode of Market in Minutes, which is part of MEPS’s Speaking of Steel podcast series. 

Listen now via YouTube and Spotify for insight into: 

• Supply trends, dictated by reduced imports and US producers’ autumn outages. 
• The US steel sector’s hopes of improved demand from the construction and automotive sectors 
• How the Federal Reserve’s interest rate cuts might boost the steel price outlook for 2026 

Speaking in the podcast, Hodges said that the reduction in US imports of long steel products had coincided with US mills’ autumn production outages, to tighten US steel supply – applying upward pressure to prices. 

“Imports of flats and longs have dropped considerably since July, when the tariff was increased to 50%,” Hodges said. 

“Just to give the numbers behind that, we were at a monthly run rate of around 1.1 million tonnes and, in September and October, we dropped to about 800,000 tonnes. 

“The data [for November] is looking like imports will be even lower.” 

Monthly insight on the US steel market is published in MEPS's International Steel Review. The report provides subscribers with steel prices, indices, market commentary and forecasts from key global steel markets in North America, Europe and Asia. Contact MEPS for details of how to subscribe.