International shipments of cement connect many nations around the world. The top five trade flows of cement and clinker generated revenues in the region of US$5bn in 2025. In the last week of July 2026, governments have successfully enacted or upheld tariffs to constrain the movement of cement, including along some major trade flows.
Our story this week begins in Quebec, Canada, where the former McInnis Cement built a new 2.2Mt/yr integrated cement plant at Port-Daniel between 2014 and June 2017. The plant is situated on the south coast of the Gaspé peninsula, facing out on the Gulf of St Lawrence, and beyond to the US east coast. It was strategically located to capture anticipated infrastructure-driven demand growth in the US, under prevailing free trade arrangements. At that time, US cement imports were forecast at 22Mt in 2018, more than doubling to 50Mt by 2028.1
On 20 January 2017, Donald Trump first took office as US President, elected on a promise, among other things, to clear up ‘bad’ trade deals. In the first year of his presidency, the country imported 13.5Mt of cement and clinker.2 Import volumes continued to grow at the anticipated rate over the next eight years, up to 25.4Mt in 2025. Over the same period, US cement consumption grew by approximately 12% to around 110Mt – hardly a bonanza. The nearest plant inside the US to Port-Daniel – Giant Cement Holding’s Thomaston plant in Maine – idled its kiln in 2025.
President Trump first enacted tariffs on goods from Canada on 4 March 2025, subject to the exemption of goods compliant with the preexisting US-Mexico-Canada Agreement (USMCA). Canadian cement is eligible to be USMCA-compliant, provided it contains all-North American raw materials and has the necessary paperwork to show it. On 20 February 2026, the US Supreme Court found Trump’s tariffs void, given that the President’s emergency powers did not extend to the imposition of tariffs. A blanket US ‘surcharge’ of 10%, and Canadian retaliatory tariffs, remained in place.
It was in this Canadian retaliation that President Trump found the legal basis for his next move. A never-before-used provision of the Tariff Act 1930 permits punitive tariffs of up to 50% on any goods from countries that treat US goods ‘unequally,’ as Canada now allegedly does. On 20 July 2026, a series of Presidential proclamations enacted 50% tariffs ‘to offset discrimination’ of US exports under three headings: alcohol, automobiles and dairy products. Under the second of these – alongside hundreds of other products from animal hides to ‘bones treated with acid’ – is cement.3 The new tariffs will enter force on 20 August 2026. The anticipated effects are as follows:
1 – A decline in sales for Canadian cement producers;
2 – A rise in costs for US construction firms, passing to the end customer.
The American Cement Association previously communicated its position on Trump’s tariff measures in March 2025.4 At time of writing, it has yet to comment on these latest developments.
The Canada-US cement trade is not one of the major global flows, but it is nonetheless instructive due to the scale of the US market, as developments might affect its larger trade partners: Türkiye and Vietnam. These industries represent significant strategic overcapacity in their respective export spheres of the Atlantic basin and Asia-Pacific.
On 23 July 2026, the Philippines government rejected importer NCL Trading’s appeal against ‘anti-dumping duties’ on Vietnamese cement, in force until 2028. It found sufficient evidence of injury to the domestic sector to maintain a tariff of up to 23% on imports. NCL Trading already pays a special reduced rate of 2%. Cement from China and Indonesia previously also became subject to the duty earlier in June 2026.
Other tariff news followed from Serbia. The landlocked country imports cement chiefly from neighbouring countries and – overland via Bulgaria – Türkiye. On 24 July 2026, the government extended a six-month quota on cement imports of 250,000t. As in the first half of the year, importers will pay 50% tariffs on shipments above quota volume. The government apportioned the quota between trade partners based on their historical volumes of cement exports to Serbia in 2020 – 2024.
New trade flows continue to open up, even as others are winding down. In the first quarter of 2026, Senegal increased its cement exports to the Gambia tenfold year-on-year, following domestic production capacity growth in Senegal in the intervening period. West African regional cement imports rose by 39% in 2025, with Eastern Mediterranean countries being the lead established providers.
There are other options available to governments seeking to prop up their domestic cement production. In New Zealand, which is 60% reliant on Fletcher Building’s Portland cement plant for its cement supply, the government granted the producer up to US$34.7m to continue production on 20 July 2026. It justified the grant based on the ‘massive exposure’ of the country to global cement supply disruptions, if not for the Portland plant. Fletcher Building said that production was becoming untenable, due in part to New Zealand’s lack of any carbon border adjustments on imports. Foreseeably, such a ‘CBAM’ mechanism may play a part in the Pacific nation’s eventual decarbonisation (due by 2050). On 22 July 2026, however, the New Zealand Climate Commission reported that the government is off track to meet its goal without immediately doubling its pace of decarbonisation.5
The government of Cambodia, meanwhile, extended a specific tax exemption on domestic cement producers’ sales on 24 July 2026, until the end of 2028. The Cambodian cement industry serves 80% of domestic cement needs, with consumption forecast to chart a composite annual growth rate of 7% up to 2028.
In Mozambique, Huaxin Cement subsidiary Cimentos de Moçambique successfully tripled the production capacity of its Nacala cement plant to 1.2Mt/yr on 28 July 2026, eliminating the need for 300,000t/yr of exports. The expanded plant will, in turn, increase its exports to Madagascar.
Investing in a cement plant is always risky. The lesson of the past decade’s cement news appears to be: secure your domestic market first. In the time since McInnis Cement commenced operations at Port-Daniel, China broadly withdrew from the import of cement, and the US now shows every sign of attempting to follow it. The definite stage of the EU’s CBAM began on 1 January 2026, and the bloc is encouraging its trade partners’ efforts to replicate the measures. Rolling, temporary tariffs have served in the Philippines and elsewhere. Into the medium-term future, underserved regions like West and Southern Africa remain. As Huaxin Cement’s movements in Mozambique make abundantly clear, this may not be the case for long.
References
1 Béton Provincial, Port-Daniel-Gascons Mcinnis Cement Plant, 2017, www.betonprovincial.com/en/our-projects/port-daniel-gascons-mcinnis-cement-plant/
2 US Geological Survey, ‘Cement Statistics and Information,’ February 2025, www.usgs.gov/centers/national-minerals-information-center/cement-statistics-and-information
3 Executive Office of the President, ‘Imposing Additional Duties To Offset Canadian Discrimination Against the Commerce of the United States With Respect to Motor Vehicles,’ 23 July 2026, www.federalregister.gov/documents/2026/07/23/2026-14997/imposing-additional-duties-to-offset-canadian-discrimination-against-the-commerce-of-the-united
4 American Cement Association, ‘US Cement Industry Statement on Trump Administration’s Proposed Tariffs,’ 3 February 2026, www.cement.org/2025/02/04/u-s-cement-industry-statement-on-trump-administrations-proposed-tariffs/
5 He Pou a Rangi Aotearoa, 2026 Monitoring report: Emissions reduction, 22 July 2026, www.climatecommission.govt.nz/reports-and-evidence/publications/2026-monitoring-report-emissions-reduction/
