From the perspective of trade policy, the United States has imposed a 25% tariff on all imported steel and aluminum since March 12. This trade protectionist behavior is like a boulder thrown into a calm lake, stirring up thousands of waves and triggering major changes in the global steel trade pattern. The European Commission responded quickly and released the "Steel and Metal Industry Action Plan" on March 19, proposing to tighten the current steel safeguard measures from April 1, 2025. The EU's current safeguard measures adopt a steel import quota mechanism, and the part exceeding the quota is subject to a 25% tariff. This tightening is aimed at enhancing the competitiveness of the industry and responding to the potential impact of US steel tariffs. In Japan, Masaru Imai, president of Nippon Steel Corporation, said on March 24 that the US's measures to impose tariffs on steel, aluminum, automobiles and other products may lead to a reduction of millions of tons in Japan's domestic crude steel production a year, and the total output will drop to less than 80 million tons. At that time, Japan's annual crude steel production will drop to the lowest level in more than half a century. South Korea was not spared either. The United States was once an important steel export market for South Korea. In 2024, South Korea's total steel exports to the United States accounted for about 13%. According to the Korea-US Free Trade Agreement signed in 2018, South Korea was originally entitled to an annual duty-free quota of 2.63 million tons of steel exported to the United States, but this quota was cancelled. Recently, Hyundai Steel, South Korea's second largest steelmaker, announced that it had entered an "emergency management" state, which shows how deeply the Korean steel industry has been affected by the US tariff policy. In addition, Malaysia announced that it would extend the steel investment moratorium, which will expire in August this year. The moratorium will be implemented from August 15, 2023 for a period of two years to cope with the current situation of rapid expansion of local steel production capacity.

In terms of production data, data from the World Steel Association showed that global crude steel production fell 3.4% year-on-year to 144.7 million tons in February. China, the world's largest steel producer, saw its crude steel production fall 3.3% year-on-year to 78.9 million tons in February. Entering March, China's steel import and export data also showed new changes. In March, China exported 10.456 million tons of steel, and the cumulative steel exports from January to March were 27.429 million tons, a year-on-year increase of 6.3%; in March, China imported 501,000 tons of steel, and the cumulative steel imports from January to March were 1.550 million tons, a year-on-year decrease of 11.3%. The "China Recycling Industry Development Report (2025)" released by the China Material Recycling Association shows that in 2024, the scale of my country's recycling industry will continue to expand, with a total recycling volume of 401 million tons, a year-on-year increase of 6.5%, and a recycling value of 1.33 trillion yuan. Among them, scrap steel is still the most recycled variety, accounting for more than 60%.

There are also frequent actions at the enterprise level. Angang Steel Co., Ltd. announced that its controlling shareholder Anshan Iron and Steel plans to increase its holdings of the company's A-share circulating shares by 100 million to 200 million yuan. The funds for the increase are Anshan Iron and Steel's own funds or self-raised funds, which will be carried out through centralized bidding transactions. At present, Anshan Iron and Steel is carrying out internal decision-making procedures for the increase. Yonggang continued to promote foreign trade exports in the first quarter and achieved a leap against the trend. Exports in the first quarter increased by nearly 70% year-on-year, and the export volume of superior products increased by 116%. 15 new international customers were developed, and 6 superior products successfully entered the overseas market. Shaanxi Iron and Steel Hangang Company recently successfully trial-produced high-quality carbon structural steel 20 steel Ф50mm round steel, marking a major breakthrough in the company's technological research and development in the field of carbon structural steel. The company will also take this as an opportunity to fully promote the "million tons of high-quality wire rods" strategy to accelerate implementation and continue to move towards the field of high-end equipment steel. The global purchasing director of Nordex, a German wind turbine manufacturer, and his core team recently visited Jingye Group Yingkou Medium Plate. The two parties formally signed a 20,000-ton tower steel plate supply agreement. The products will be directly supplied to Nordex's 4 domestic and 8 overseas strategic cooperation tower factories. As one of the top ten wind turbine manufacturers in the world, with business covering more than 40 countries and regions, this cooperation marks that the Yingkou base has successfully entered the international high-end wind power steel supply chain. On April 10, the capacity replacement steelmaking and supporting project of Quanzhou Minguang undertaken by MCC Southern was successfully launched. As a key project of Sangang Group, this project is a strategic measure to promote the optimization of Quanzhou Minguang's industrial structure, which has far-reaching significance for Quanzhou Minguang to achieve high-quality development. On April 8, the general contracting project of the new 1,280 cubic meter blast furnace and supporting public and auxiliary facilities of Quzhou Yuanli Metal Products Co., Ltd. undertaken by Shanghai Baoye achieved the first domestic transportation and smooth placement of the blast furnace body and frame overall modules, marking a major technological breakthrough in the modular construction of large industrial equipment by Baoye. The project is located in Quzhou City, Zhejiang Province. The construction content includes the demolition of two old blast furnaces and related facilities, and the construction of a new 1,280 cubic meter blast furnace and its supporting facilities. Recently, the cold rolling project of Henan Xingsheng New Materials Co., Ltd. was officially put into production. The project uses the original 6,000 square meters of the optical cable workshop and expands it by 2,000 square meters to build one cold rolling production line, one bending and straightening production line, and two slitting production lines, injecting strong momentum into local economic growth. Linggang Co., Ltd. announced that the company's chairman, Mr. Zhang Peng, proposed that the company repurchase some shares through centralized bidding transactions, with a total repurchase amount of 50 million yuan to 100 million yuan, and the upper limit of the repurchase price shall not exceed 150% of the average trading price of the company's A-shares in the 30 trading days before the board of directors reviewed and approved the resolution of the repurchase plan. The source of funds is the company's own funds and self-raised funds. The repurchased shares are intended to be used for equity incentives and other purposes permitted by laws and regulations. The repurchase period is within 12 months from the date the board of directors reviewed and approved the plan.

The global steel market is facing unprecedented challenges and opportunities under the interweaving of multiple factors such as changes in trade policies, fluctuations in production data, and companies' active changes, and its future direction has attracted much attention.