US tariffs and the cement sector, April 2025

President Trump said he was going to do it… and he did. The US announced tariffs on most imports on 2 April 2025 that took effect from 5 April 2025. So, once again, we ask what the consequences of this might be upon the cement sector.

Table 1: Estimated burden of US tariffs on selected countries importing cement based on 2024 data. Source: Based on USGS data.

Global Cement Magazine Editorial Director Robert McCaffrey posted a similar table to the one above on LinkedIn on 4 April 2025. It applies the new import tariffs to the value of imported hydraulic cement and clinker to the US in 2024 as reported by the United States Geological Survey (USGS). As such it gives us a starting idea of how the new tariffs might change what happens in 2025. For an idea of the volumes of cement imported to the US in recent years refer to the graph in GCW695.

However, a couple of key caveats were pointed out by commentators to that LinkedIn post. Marty Ozinga noted that the values from the USGS are customs values. Crucially, he said that the tariffs will be charged upon the FOB value of cement at the point of origin and not on the transport costs. This is significant because the cost of moving the cement can sometimes be more than half the total values reported in the table for certain countries. Another commentator wanted to make it clear that tariffs on imports are imposed upon the supply chain and are paid somewhere along it, typically by end users, rather than the originating country. Elsewhere, the feeling was very much one of waiting to see what would happen next and how markets would reorder.

Taken at face value, the first takeaway from Table 1 is that the variable tariffs disrupt the competitiveness of the importers. Any importer from a country with the lowest rate, 10%, now has an advantage over those with higher ones. Türkiye seems to be the obvious winner here as it was both the largest importer of cement in 2024 and it has the lowest rate. Vietnam appears to be a loser with a massive 46% rate. Canada and Mexico may have problems with a 25% tariff but how their cement gets to the US market may make a big difference as Ozinga mentions above. And so it goes down the list. What may be significant is how the order of the importers further down the list changes. For example, Algeria has a 30% rate compared to Egypt’s 10%. Both nations exported a similar volume of cement to the US in 2024.

The first casualty of the last week has been market certainty. The US announced the tariffs and stock markets slumped around the world. They started to revive on 8 April 2025 as the US government made more reassuring noises about trade talks but this was dampened by renewed fears of a US - China trade war. The orthodox economic view is that the US tariffs are increasingly likely to cause a recession in the US in the short term regardless of whether they have a more positive effect on the longer one. This view can be detected in former PCA economist Ed Sullivan’s latest independent report on the US economy. He acknowledged the fairness argument the US government has made, but warned of stagflation.

On the US construction market, prices look set to rise in areas that previously relied on imports or are near to them. Cement companies in the US should be able to sell higher volumes as some level of domestic production outcompetes imports. The sector produced 86Mt in 2024 and has a capacity of 120Mt/yr giving it a utilisation rate of 72%. It imported 20 - 25Mt of cement in 2024. One sign of this happening might be renewed investment in local capacity through upgrades, new lines and even new plants. However, a recession would reduce overall consumption. On the equipment side, there is likely to be a similar readjustment between local and foreign suppliers. Certainly, if the tariffs stick around then more non-US companies may be tempted to set up local subsidiaries and /or manufacturing bases if conditions permit. For example, note JCB’s doubling in size this week of a plant it is building in Texas. One interesting situation might occur if a US cement company wants to build a new production line. All the likely suppliers, at present at least, appear to be based outside of the US.

Finally, despite everything, Holcim declared this week that it had completed a $3.4bn bond offering ahead of the impending spin-off of Amrize in the US noting “strong investor interest in the future company.” It wants to shore-up confidence ahead of the creation of the new company at some point in the first half of the year. Holcim’s CEO said previously that he didn’t expect any blowback from tariffs as the company was a local business in the US. What may be worth watching for is whether the current disruption to stock markets causes any delays to the creation of Amrize.

The current situation with the tariffs is prompting a rapid-revaluation of the US construction market and the wider economy. US-based building materials companies look set to benefit but there may be disruption along the way. Foreign companies supplying the sector may well experience sharp changes in circumstances depending on how tariffs reorder supply chains. Prices for end-users look set to rise. We live in interesting times.

For Ed Sullivan’s take on the US cement sector read his article in the May 2025 issue of Global Cement Magazine