Steel mills located in Brazil have cut 5,100 jobs and suspended 2.5 billion reais of investments until November this year, due to the strong pressure caused by Chinese steel imports into the country. The data was communicated this Tuesday (16) to journalists by the Instituto Aço Brasil, which did not detail the values by company.
During the same period, four blast furnaces, one steelworks and five mini-mills (semi-integrated plants that melted scrap metal in electric furnaces) had to be closed due to lower demand for internally produced steel compared to last year.
The institute, which represents the sector in the country, revised crude steel production in Brazil downwards from a 0.8% drop to a 2.2% drop. It is estimated that by the end of 2025, Brazilian steel mills will have produced 33.1 million tonnes of steel and sold 21.1 million domestically and 10.2 million abroad – on the latter there was a 6.9% increase in the projection.
As for crude steel imports, the estimate for the end of the year is an increase of 7.5% compared to 2024 and 20.5% compared to rolled steel, the main product sold to civil construction, as well as to automobile and machine manufacturers. There was a drop in the institute’s projections, which predicted an increase of 19.1% and 32.2% respectively.
This drop, according to the institute, is due to the drop in product prices from Brazilian steel mills, which have had to adapt to compete with Chinese companies. But despite this reduction, the sector still considers the entry of Chinese steel into the country as the main obstacle to the market.
Until November, Brazil imported 5.4 million tonnes of rolled steel, compared to an annual average of 2.2 million between 2000 and 2019 – the sharp rise in imports began after the Covid-19 pandemic, when the intensity of domestic steel consumption in China decreased, causing an increase in exports from Chinese companies. For example, of total imports through November, 64% came from China.
In addition, another 6.2 million tonnes of steel entered the country indirectly, already processed into final products, such as household appliances, automobiles and machinery.
The Instituto Aço Brasil attributes the massive entry of Chinese steel into Brazil to what it calls illegal strategies by the Chinese government.
To journalists, the organization presented data from Platts, a global price monitoring platform, which indicates an exponential decline in the price of Chinese steel from January 2024 (when a ton of hot-rolled coils was sold at $560) to November 2025 ($454). The decline, however, is occurring at the same time as there is a reduction in margins at Chinese factories, which the Instituto Aço Brasil says represents trade dumping, when companies sell products abroad below cost or domestic market price to eliminate competition.
In May, the Brazilian government responded to an industry demand and renewed entry quotas for 16 types of steel into the country, 76% of which come from China. However, this measure, although considered positive by steelmakers, did not resolve the sector’s problems.
In the third quarter of 2025, for example, the Ebitda (earnings before interest, taxes, depreciation and amortization) of the steel mills operating in Brazil amounted to 2.8 billion reais, almost half of that recorded during the same period last year. The Ebitda margin, which takes into account the proportion of the index on the net turnover of companies, decreased from 12.9% to 7.7%.
Today, the sector is trying to convince the federal government to increase steel import tariffs, currently between 9 and 16% on the products targeted by the federal government’s measure and 25% on the quantity exceeding the quotas determined in May.
Another aspect of the sector’s institutional efforts concerns the 50% tariffs imposed by the United States on any type of steel entering the country, regardless of the country of origin.
According to the executive president of the Instituto Aço Brasil, Marco Polo de Mello Lopes, the institute hopes that, in the context of improving relations between the two countries, the government of Donald Trump will cancel customs duties on Brazilian products and restore the quota system created in 2018. During this period, Brazilian steelmakers could export up to 3.5 million tons of semi-finished steel to the Americans without paying customs duties.
“In 2018, Trump did exactly the same thing (…) and according to our understanding, in the 2018 example, if this negotiation channel succeeds, the agreement can be restored and Brazil will provide the quota and, instead of being taxed at 50%, it will be left with 0%,” he said.
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