European Steel Industry Warns of 300,000 Job Losses and Protests China's Grip on Supply Chains
Eurometal, the European steel and metal industry association, predicts 300,000 manufacturing job losses across the EU in the remainder of 2026, pointing to intensifying competition from China. The organization plans a protest in Brussels on Monday, staging a procession around the European Commission headquarters featuring 10 symbolic coffins marked with phrases including 'EU competitiveness', 'industrial jobs', and 'European factories' The Guardian. The action, titled 'Keep Manufacturing in Europe', will see representatives of companies and associations carry the coffins around the Berlaymont building Eurometal.
Eurometal president Alexander Julius is leading the protest as the industry group warns that China is embedding itself in EU supply chains through the sale of components — the individual parts that go into finished products. The concern is that by controlling the supply of these parts, China can eventually dominate the complete value chain, meaning everything from raw materials to the final product sold to consumers The Guardian. Eurometal describes China as running a record €1 billion-a-day trade surplus with the EU. The EU's trade deficit with China (the gap between what the EU imports from China and what it exports there) widened in 2025 to roughly 360 billion euros ($410 billion), approximately 1 billion euros per day, and continues to rise U.S. News & World Report. EU trade commissioner Maroš Šefčovič has called the €360 billion annual import-export imbalance with China 'not sustainable' The Guardian.
The structural picture is bleaker than the headline figure. A European Commission analysis in June 2026 projected potential EU job losses exceeding 1 million due to high energy costs and global competition. Volkswagen confirmed 100,000 job cuts by 2030 in September 2026 The Guardian. The European Trade Union Confederation reported that EU manufacturing employment had already fallen by 853,000 since the third quarter of 2019 ETUC. Eurofer, the European steel association, notes that nearly 100,000 EU steel jobs have been lost in the past 15 years and that the sector still provides over 300,000 direct jobs Eurofer. Eurofer supports the upcoming demonstration and warns that EU inaction puts thousands more European steel jobs at risk Eurofer.
Eurometal argues that Chinese-made components face none of the tariffs (import taxes) and carbon emissions taxes imposed on European metal manufacturers. The group also claims that China's currency, the yuan, is undervalued, which makes Chinese goods artificially cheaper on world markets and further disadvantages European producers. When manufacturing leaves Europe, the continent loses production, investment, knowhow, and long-term economic resilience The Guardian.
The EU has taken steps to address the imbalance. It imposed tariffs on Chinese electric vehicle imports in 2024 and introduced higher tariffs on imports of foreign steel in June 2026 The Guardian. The EU and China agreed to hold three months of talks ending in October 2026 to try to avert a trade war The Guardian. On the services side, China's services trade deficit with the EU reached $48.3 billion in 2025, representing 41.6 percent of China's total services trade deficit China Daily Asia. The EU's goods trade deficit with China peaked at nearly €400 billion in 2022 Atlantic Council.
The broader context here is one of accumulated pressure on European industrial policy. Steel industry bosses and workers protested Chinese dumping — selling products below the cost of production to drive out competitors — at a Brussels rally a decade ago, urging the EU to take tough action on overcapacity Deutsche Welle. The tariff measures adopted since then, on EVs and steel, target finished goods and raw materials. Eurometal's complaint about components suggests the gap in the current framework: Chinese parts enter European supply chains without the levies and carbon costs that European metal manufacturers bear.
Think of it this way: if you tariff the finished car but not the engine, the steering column, and the brake pads that go into it, you may shift where the trade imbalance shows up without actually fixing it. If component-level imports are the channel through which China consolidates control over value chains, then tariffs on finished products alone may redirect the trade imbalance rather than resolve it.
The timing of the Brussels protest is pointed. The EU-China talks running through October 2026 give policymakers a narrow diplomatic window. The Commission's own projection of over 1 million potential job losses lends institutional weight to what industry associations have argued independently. The convergence of Eurometal's 300,000 forecast for the rest of 2026 with Volkswagen's confirmed 100,000 cuts by 2030 suggests that the headline numbers may overlap rather than stack, but the direction is unambiguous. What remains unresolved is whether the October talks produce a framework that addresses component-level integration, or whether the current tariff architecture continues to treat symptoms while the structural integration Eurometal describes deepens.
