United States, said on November 25 that he would impose an additional 10% tariff on all products imported from China on his first day in office. What impact will this tariff increase have on China's cement exports? In view of US tariffs and Chinese cement exports to the United States, this article makes an in-depth interpretation:
First, the US tariff policy
towards China Before the Sino-US trade war, the United States promulgated Article 301 of the Trade Act in 1974, which did not impose tariffs on cement-related products. However, since the outbreak of the Sino-US trade war in 2018, the relationship between the two countries has been tense, and the United States has repeatedly imposed tariffs on Chinese goods. Especially since 2018, the United States has implemented a series of tariff measures against China under Article 301, which apply to a variety of products, are levied in four rounds, issued in the form of a "list", and impose about $550 billion of goods imported from China annually. On September 24, 2018, the United States launched the third round of tariff increases, with a scale of 200 billion US dollars and a tax rate of 10%. The coverage is mainly heavy industrial products, mainly focusing on electrical machinery and electrical equipment, nuclear reactor boiler machinery and appliances, furniture, vehicles and spare parts and steel products, etc. It also covers minerals related to the cement industry, such as limestone flux, quicklime, slaked lime, gypsum, anhydrite, Portland cement clinker, etc. By May 2019, the United States had raised tariffs on these products from 10% to 25%.
Table 1: Tariff rates
imposed by the United States on Chinese cement-related products Source: Cement Big Data (https://data.ccement.com/). US USTR
Table 2: Tariff
Imposition on Chinese Goods in 301 Clause List Source: Cement Big Data (https://data.ccement.com/), US USTR
II. The impact
of US tariff policy on China's cement exports China exported about 2 million tons of cement and clinker to the United States in 2017 and 2018, accounting for 24% and 27% of China's total cement exports. In May 2019, the United States raised tariffs from 10% to 25%, significantly raising the cost of Chinese cement and clinker exports to the United States, resulting in a sharp drop in cement and clinker exports to the United States. In 2019, China's cement exports to the United States dropped to 1.22 million tons, the export amount dropped from 94.978 million US dollars to 60.1468 million US dollars, the export volume and export amount dropped by 39% and 37% respectively, and the clinker export almost stagnated. In 2020, China's cement exports continued to decline, and China's cement exports to the United States were almost zero.
Table 3: Data
of cement and clinker exported from China to the United States Source: Cement Big Data (https://data.ccement.com/), China Customs
Today, the import and export of cement and clinker between China and the United States has almost stopped. According to the latest data from the USGS Geological Survey from January to August in 2024, the United States imported 757 tons of cement and clinker from China, accounting for 0.004% of the total cement and clinker imported by the United States. No matter how the Trump Administration adjusts the tariff policy, its impact on China's cement exports to the United States has become relatively limited.
