June 2025: steel and aluminum double to 50%, and Canada answers with quotas

Dated entry. This covers 30 June 2025 and has not been updated since. Tariff rules change constantly and some of this will have been superseded — check the official sources before acting on it.

On 4 June 2025 the US raised Section 232 duties on steel, aluminum and their derivatives from 25% to 50%. There was no CUSMA exemption. Canadian metal paid the same as anyone else’s.

Canada moved on 27 June, imposing import quotas on steel mill products — flat, long, pipe and tube, semi-finished and stainless — from countries without a free trade agreement. Over-quota volumes attracted a 50% surtax. CBSA set it out in Customs Notice CN25-24, with a review promised after thirty days.

Two days later, on 29 June, Canada announced it would rescind the Digital Services Tax Act and cancelled the first payment deadline that had been set for the following day — a trade irritant removed in the middle of a tariff fight.

What it meant for freight: check quota headroom before quoting northbound steel, because over-quota volumes carried the 50% surtax.