Anti-dumping measures on steel remained a common tool in 2025 – OECD

An increasing number of jurisdictions are turning to large-scale practices

In 2025, anti-dumping and countervailing duties (AD/CVD) continued to be widely used in the global market to combat steel dumping and subsidisation. This is stated in a new report by the Organisation for Economic Co-operation and Development (OECD) — the OECD Steel Outlook 2026.

In addition, an increasing number of countries have introduced or are introducing more extensive trade measures.

Although the growth in the number of new anti-dumping/countervailing investigations slowed somewhat last year, the number remained relatively high – at 75 in total, compared with 90 in 2024. China remained the main target of these proceedings, accounting for 27 cases out of the total. In total, 27 countries were the subject of unfair trade cases during the period.

All but one of the investigations last year concluded with positive preliminary rulings. Countries have become more efficient in handling cases, and the timeframe for preliminary rulings has been reduced from 200 days in recent years to 144 in 2025. Investigations into countervailing duties often began simultaneously with anti-dumping proceedings.

However, the OECD notes that the full impact of unfair trade cases on markets must be viewed over time, as measures taken in previous years continue to affect trade.

It is noteworthy that in recent years, an increasing number of countries have been initiating new cases, involving both a growing number of countries and goods.

The number of anti-dumping/anti-subsidy measures, including cases initiated since 2016, reached a record high of 395 in 2025, compared with 321 in 2024. There are currently 113 trade measures in place against China, 41 against South Korea and 33 against Vietnam. The United States leads with 77 measures, followed by Canada (64), Australia (46) and the EU (32). Together, these four jurisdictions account for around half of all global trade measures relating to anti-dumping and countervailing duties.

The OECD report also notes that such measures are well suited to addressing issues related to specific products from specific countries, but are insufficient to tackle global overcapacity. Consequently, an increasing number of jurisdictions have resorted to broader measures, although in many cases this also affects imports from countries that are not sources of excess capacity, and thus regional value chains.

It should be noted that, according to OECD data, global steel production overcapacity is set to reach 745 million tonnes by 2028.