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    Overseas

    SMU Survey: New Foreign Steel Orders

    Written by John Packard


    One of the questions being asked in the marketplace is how much foreign steel is being ordered and will there be a flood of imports as we move into the months of May and June. There is a portion of the market who believe there will be a flood while others are of the opinion import levels will remain relatively muted as we move into late spring and the summer months.

    We are going to address this subject in a couple of ways this week. First, we are going to share a portion of the data we have been collecting through our flat rolled market trends analysis which we conduct twice per month. Second, we are going to speak with a number of traders this week to see if they are seeing a rise in orders and what their expectations are for imports during the aforementioned time frame.

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    Price on Trade: Steel’s zero-sum game

    During the first three quarters of 2026, finished steel imports from South Korea increased 50.8% compared with the same period in 2025. Imports from Vietnam increased 23.4%, imports from Turkey increased 49.5%, and imports from India increased 29.5%. Those are not marginal increases. They are substantial import surges, especially in a US market where apparent domestic consumption has bounced around but has not grown since 2017. More importantly, these import surges are arriving at lower average unit values (AUVs).