Chinese mills are churning out steel, aluminum and even refined copper at near-record levels and sending the surplus abroad, a trend steel industry analysts say could pressure industrial metal prices in the United States. After a year of lagging domestic demand, China’s exports of construction and manufacturing metals have surged, flooding global markets with cheap supply. U.S. manufacturers and procurement teams are watching closely.
China exported 110.7 million tons of steel in 2024, a 22.7% jump from the prior year and the highest number ever recorded. With weak demand at home, China’s domestic steel consumption fell to a six-year low in 2024, pushing the steel industry to aggressively court foreign buyers with low-priced steel.
The strategy worked. First-quarter 2025 steel exports climbed another 6.3% year-on-year to 27.4 million tons, the highest Q1 volume since 2016. “In conditions of overproduction, send the surplus to foreign markets,” quipped one industry analyst, noting the logic behind China’s export spree.
