Can maker metal supplies disrupted by Trump tariffs

Global trade policy shifts impacting steel, aluminium and tin, especially driven by the mercurial policy on tariffs by US President Donald Trump, and sanctions imposed on Russia over its ongoing invasion of Ukraine, are disrupting long established supply chains for metal cans.

The availability of raw materials from Russia – one of the world’s five top producers of aluminium, with 3.8 million tonnes of output in 2024; and steel (76 million tonnes in 2023) has been increasingly restricted by sanctions.

Then, in June 2025, President Trump imposed tariffs up to 50% on these commodities as part of his protectionist ‘America First’ policies, prompting retaliatory tariffs and restrictions and/or attempts to sign bilateral deals with Washington.

Overcapacity and subsidies disrupt steel market

This disruption follows long-term distortions in global steel markets especially, with the Steel Outlook 2025, released by the OECD, repeating past concerns that competition has been distorted by subsidies, particularly in China, (where
supports are ten times higher than those in OECD countries) and in Association of Southeast Asian Nations (ASEAN) member states and countries in the Middle East and North Africa. The same source expects global steel production to reach 1.9 billion tonnes in 2025.

Stephan Raes, head of the OECD’s structural and industry policy division, told CanTech International: “We see that the global steel industry is facing
increasingly difficult challenges. As demand slowed, production and capacity costs did not adjust proportionally, prompting an increase in exports and squeezing prices and margins worldwide,” he said.

Such uncertainties are complicating supply chains for metal packaging manufacturers. Dr James Watson, director general of European nonferrous metals industry association Eurometaux, told CanTech: “These developments are reshaping the flows of key raw materials – particularly aluminium, as well as steel and tin – into Europe and are placing mounting pressure on the
resilience of the sector’s supply chain.”

Moreover, the European aluminium industry, “a critical supplier to the can making sector, is currently facing a severe scrap crisis,” he said, adding that “record volumes of aluminium scrap are leaving the EU for markets such as India, Malaysia, Indonesia, China as well as the US.” Dr Watson noted the 50% US tariff on certain aluminium products was aggravating this trend: “Because aluminium scrap is exempt from these tariffs, it has become increasingly attractive for exporters, accelerating outflows and eroding the availability of secondary raw materials within Europe,” he said.

Andy Doran, director of packaging at European Aluminium, added that as scrap only carries a 15% tariff, the US has become “an unfairly favourable export destination” for such a product, and it is “difficult for European producers to compete on price with regions where energy is cheaper and environmental rules are weaker or not enforced.”

Of course, the fact that regardless of these trade shifts, global steel excess capacity is still rising – expected to rise from 601 million tonnes in 2024 to 721 million tonnes by 2027 –so steel prices are expected to stay competitive, noted the reports from OECD’s the Global Forum on Steel Excess Capacity in October 2025.

In September, flat steel prices were only 5% higher year-on-year, while 47% below their July 2021 peaks: “This reduction in steel prices may benefit downstream industries, such as the canning manufacturing sector,” noted Raes.

Tin market on edge

Meanwhile, tariffs, macro uncertainty and supply headwinds are impacting the tin market, where 11% of output is used for tinplate (sheet steel coated with tin) worldwide, said Gao Lan, chief representative of the International Tin Association (ITA) in China, who warned the London Metal Exchange (LME) Asia Metals Seminar 2025, in Hong Kong in May 2025.

She noted the market is under pressure following the introduction of the US tariffs; regulatory exports hurdles in Indonesia, where the government is targeting growth in domestic downstream tin processing; and the impact of continued conflict in the Democratic Republic of the Congo (DRC) on its local production, among other issues.

These changes matter given a key focus of the US tariffs – China was (as of November 2024), the largest producer of tin ore worldwide (25% to 33% of available resources), followed by Indonesia (at around 19%), according to the ITA, with the DRC producing 8.3% of global ore output, according to the US Geological Survey (USGS). The ITA added that the availability of refined tin was already falling, as 2024 saw global refined tin production at 371,200 tonnes, down 2.7% from 2023.

Gao suggested that global cooperation on markets, technology, sustainability and regulatory issues is needed to achieve long-term success for the industry.

US consumers concerned with tariffs

Scott Breen, president of the Washington DC, US-based Can Manufacturers Institute (CMI), told CanTech: “Tariffs on tinplate steel have real and unintended consequences for US can manufacturers, farmers, food producers and millions of American families that rely on canned goods.” As a result, he wants targeted tariff relief on steel used for packaging as an opportunity for the Trump administration to address rising food costs, limit imports of canned foods, and protect thousands of US jobs.

Nearly 80% of tinplate for US can manufacturing is imported and, according to Breen, when Trump imposed tariffs of 25% on steel and 10% on aluminium in 2018 during his first term of office, nine of 12 US tinplate lines stopped running, forcing steel can manufacturers to import inputs from Canada, the European Union (EU) and the UK: “There has been no payoff for the higher costs for canned goods that tariffs on tinplate are creating,” he warned.

Meanwhile, July 2025 research from by the Washington DC-based thinktank, American Action Forum, predicted: “If the 50% tariff remains in place, can manufacturers’ total costs could increase by up to 12%, although the price of canned food may increase to a greater extent as higher input costs work their way throughout the supply chain to the end consumer.”

Furthermore, a September 2025 poll commissioned by the CMI has shown that 72% of American voters support a tariff exemption on tinplate steel to deal with higher food prices.

Still, Andrew Harig, vice-president of tax, trade, sustainability and policy development at the Virginia, US-based Food Industry Association (FMI), believes that American consumers will not abandon canned food purchases due to the tariffs. Moreover, he is sceptical that the tariffs will lead to increased US-based metal manufacturing capacity, certainly in the short term, given the US relies on aluminium imports, including from Canada, often in very integrated supply chains, while building new metal manufacturing plants in the US would take time.

So, Harig believes that now the Trump administration has exempted many food products from previously announced tariffs on 14 November 14 2025, some of the steel and aluminium tariffs might follow, especially due to the limited domestic packaging production. Still, he warned: “It is a tough process ahead of us.”

The FMI is advising members to adjust to a period of continued disruption in the next six to 24 months by being nimble and adapt: “If there are alternative suppliers, look for them… You don’t want to sort of get locked into something where you don’t have choices,” it urged in a statement.

Aluminium

As for aluminium, production is also rising worldwide – with the UK-headquartered International Aluminium Institute saying global primary aluminium production reached 73 million tonnes in 2024, up from the 70.7 million produced in 2023.

Still, in 2025, LME aluminium prices rose from around US$2,400 per tonne in late March to US$2,800-2,900 per tonne in November, marking the highest level since the surge triggered by Russia’s invasion of Ukraine in 2022, according to the Shanghai Metals Market.

Eurometaux’s Dr Watson highlighted “persistent overcapacity and unfair trade practices in several third countries – often tied to state owned enterprises benefiting from substantial government subsidies,” is causing some structural oversupply.

Aluminium imports are also often produced under conditions that do not meet European environmental and labour standards, he warned, with all the potential regulatory, compliance and marketing issues that could follow: “Allowing these materials into the European market not only disadvantages domestic producers but also threatens the long-term viability of Europe’s aluminium value chain,” he said.

As for the scrap shortage, Dr Watson called on the EU to introduce an export fee “to ensure access to sufficient scrap at competitive prices, and the raw materials needed to meet the EU’s circularity and recycling aims.”

Steel for Packaging Europe (SfPE) secretary general, Steve Claus, painted a similar picture for steel – with overproduction and cheap imports impacting local production, impacting reliability of supply. The “volatile geopolitical landscape” of recent years has increased steel imports, “particularly from countries with overcapacity and lower production costs,” he said, adding this places “greater pressure on EU steel prices and reduced demand for domestically produced steel.”

He said the EU was taking steps to regularise this situation, notably preparing to introduce a “highly effective trade measure to replace existing steel safeguard measures in place since July 2018, and to expire on 30 June, 2026, with a consultation launched on 18 July,” he said. If supported, this will limit tariff-free import volumes to 18.3 million tonnes a year (a reduction of 47% compared to 2024 steel quotas).

SfPE wants “a permanent reviewable global Tariff Rate Quota mechanism with per-country caps,” to prevent sudden import surges from dominant exports, avoid marginalising smaller suppliers and to “maintain the EU’s leadership in sustainable industrial innovation,” said Claus.

Dr Watson said that to combat global excess aluminium capacity and unfair subsidisation, the EU should apply similar instruments to safeguard aluminium producers: “These steps – paired with a coherent EU trade policy promoting sustainably produced materials – are essential to reinforcing the competitiveness and green transition of the European can making supply chain,” he said in a comment to CanTech.

Krassimira Kazashka, CEO of Europe’s rigid metal packaging association Metal Packaging Europe, agreed, saying the sector needs “immediate and targeted EU action to restore fair competition and protect strategic value chains.”

“We call for swift export fees on high quality aluminium scrap to keep this critical secondary raw material in Europe for closed loop recycling, and priority access for used beverage containers [UBC] scrap to European producers,” she said. “This will incentivise deposit return scheme [DRS] operators to sell only UBCs for can-to-can recycling in Europe.

“Trade defence measures like the newly proposed EU measure on steel overcapacity must also be extended to downstream derivative products such as steel packaging and components, as protecting only primary producers is not enough to maintain competitiveness,” she argued.

To support a shift towards green steel and green aluminium, EU policies must also recognise the role of permanent materials, with steel and aluminium “able to be recycled forever without quality loss,” she told CanTech: “Strengthening recycling infrastructure and keeping high quality secondary materials within the EU are essential.”

Indeed, the industry can invest in high performance in innovation, design and sustainability “if we avoid the risks presented by scrap leakage,” said the EA’s Doran.

“No other region comes close to our recycling performance – with beverage can recycling rates above 75% [in 2022] and growing – or to the investments we are making in decarbonisation.” SfPE’s Steve Claus said steel was playing its part, with an 82% recycling rate for steel packaging in 2023 in Europe.