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Market participants interviewed by Fastmarkets questioned the practicality of such a ban, however, noting differences between scrap and primary aluminium and potential market repercussions.
The white paper said that federal action is needed to keep high-quality aluminium scrap in the US to support manufacturing, and that aluminium scrap is vital to national security, infrastructure and manufacturing.
“Targeted scrap export controls will support American manufacturing, reduce reliance on foreign metal imports and combat efforts by China to corner the global aluminum recycling market,” Aluminum Association vice president of external affairs Matt Meenan told Fastmarkets on Wednesday.
“The Aluminum Association worked hard to craft a policy that would minimize disruption to the scrap market in the short term while supporting domestic metal supply in the long-term,” Meenan said.
The US exported 460,817 short tons of UBC scrap in 2024, a 9.04% decline from 506,601 tons in 2023, according to the US Commerce Department. Volumes rose sharply in 2022 but have declined since 2024.
In January-July 2025, US UBC exports fell by 40.86%, with the US exporting 109,092 tons, compared to 183,897 tons exported in the same period of 2024.
Also in the first seven months of 2025, imports of UBC increased by 50.21%. The US imported 185,094 tons of UBC scrap in January-July 2025, of which approximately 65% came from Mexico and Canada.
Excluding UBC, the US exported 1,802,283 tons of aluminium scrap in 2024, a 4.45% increase from 1,725,484 tons in 2023.
In contrast to the decline in UBC exports, the US exported 1,221,105 tons of other aluminium scrap, an increase of 9.42% from the same period of 2024.
The US industry uses aluminium scrap to support approximately 85% of domestic production in secondary metal, according to the white paper.
Because UBCs are a “valuable and usable scrap stream,” they should be prioritized under potential scrap export restrictions, the Aluminum Association wrote, maintaining its previous stance.
“[UBCs are] a vital resource for the US aluminum industry. We believe there is no reason to be exporting this scrap to countries we have already taken trade action against,” Aluminum Association president and chief executive officer Charles Johnson said at a September 18 press roundtable.
The US fills an approximately 3.5 million metric tonnes annual gap in raw, unwrought aluminium metal supply through imports, according to the association.
It also reported that around two-thirds of primary aluminium used by the US each year comes from Canada, but scrap export controls coupled with efforts to collect more aluminium scrap for recycling and infrastructure investment could close the 25-50% of the gap at a low cost, the white paper said.
Currently, Canadian primary aluminium imports are subject to a 50% Section 232 tariff rate – which has led the Midwest US premium for primary aluminium to historic highs since March.
Fastmarkets’ daily assessment of the aluminium P1020A premium, ddp Midwest US was unchanged for most of this week, but rose to $0.78-0.80 per lb on Thursday from $0.76-0.78 per lb on Wednesday.
Sources have argued, however, that scrap is not always interchangeable with the primary aluminium material producers may need.
“Some buyers don’t have the ability to switch to scrap,” a US trader told Fastmarkets on Wednesday. “All mills would prefer to take more scrap if they could,” they said, adding that not all of them “have that ability.”
Primary aluminium sources at the Recycled Materials Association Roundtables in September shared similar views.
One of them said it was “not an easy button to push, to convert scrap” into material primary consumers can use in place of P1020A. It’s “not simply about getting scrap in the country.”
Other scrap sources also said they believed an export ban would likely have a negative impact on the market.
A second US scrap source called a potential ban “the dumbest thing I’ve ever heard.”
“I haven’t been able to buy UBCs for export because they have been staying domestic, and the mills have been importing too much already,” they said.
Fastmarkets’ analyst Andy Farida said an export ban was not needed. “As long as the domestic price for UBCs is high enough, there is no need for an export ban. There isn’t domestic capacity to recycle scrap in the first place,” he said.
Fastmarkets’ assessment for aluminium scrap used beverage cans, domestic aluminium producer buying price, fob shipping point US was $0.89-0.93 per lb October 9, flat from October 2.
“Having an export ban now, with no capacity to recycle it, will depress the UBC price – and the scrap market is sensitive to low prices,” Farida continued.
But Aluminum Association’s Meenan pointed to new demand coming online in the near term.
“With more than $11 billion invested in the United States over the past decade – and two new rolling mills coming online for the first time in a generation – metal supply challenges will only become more acute in the coming years,” Meenan said.
These rolling mills refer to Aluminum Dynamics’ commissioned 650,000-tonne greenfield facility in Columbus, Mississippi; and Novelis’ 600,000-tonne rolling and recycling plant in Bay Minette, Alabama, which is expected to go online by June 2026.
“Scrap export controls aren’t a silver bullet but – along with common sense trade, energy and recycling policies – can help sustain and grow American aluminum,” Meenan added.
The Aluminum Association also called for a potential future expansion of export controls to other types of mill-ready scrap, as well as lower-quality scrap such as twitch and zorba, as tracking and sortation infrastructure improves
But the association said it was not calling for export restrictions on such lower-quality scrap at this time.
Asian market participants’ biggest concern was the possibility of the ban being expanded to include grades like zorba and twitch, Fastmarkets heard.
Should this material eventually be prohibited from export, it would pose a critical supply problem for major consumers, particularly China and India, as well as for midstream scrap processing hubs like Hong Kong, Japan and Southeast Asia, sources told Fastmarkets.
“If it really comes to that, it will have a huge impact on China. Downstream producers might end up returning to using more primary material in their mix,” a second Chinese trader said.
“But given that China has its primary aluminium production cap, it’s more likely that we’ll see the government introduce measures to improve domestic scrap collection again,” this trader added.
In November 2024, China loosened its import restrictions on copper and aluminium scrap to allow for more wrought aluminium scrap and clean scrap imports.
Chinese imports of aluminium scrap under harmonized system (HS) code 7602 have jumped by more than 25% year on year from 137,705 tonnes in August 2024 to 172,610 tonnes in August this year, according to the latest Chinese customs data.
The Aluminum Association reported that China has more than doubled its aluminium scrap imports since 2020 while it “rapidly” expanded its recycling capacity. It also said that the country aims to produce more than 15 million tonnes of recycled aluminium by 2027.
Although US aluminium scrap exports to China – excluding UBC – rose by 22.96% in 2024, the country received only 2.8% of total US scrap exports that year.
Regarding UBC, US exports bound for China rose by 161.52% in 2024, but again China accounted for only 8.3% of all UBC tonnages exported by the US that year. In January-July 2025, UBC exports to China represented a share of 4.96%.
In 2025, the US was the fourth-largest source of aluminium scrap imports into China – behind Thailand, the UK and Japan. It supplied 86,475 tonnes, or about 6.4%, of the total volume imported by China in January-August 2025, according to the latest Chinese customs statistics.
The proposal for a US aluminium scrap export ban came as little surprise to Chinese importers, with some saying they have heard discussions about such policy recommendations for months now.
“I completely understand. Whether it’s the US or EU, everyone wants to use more scrap now and everyone wants to make sure they have got enough material for themselves,” a Chinese trading source said.
Regulatory hurdles have not been isolated to the US. Earlier this year, the European Union was also evaluating similar measures, which included calls for a similar ban on scrap or the imposition of export duties.
“Europeans have been saying this forever, [that] we should be consuming all our scrap,” the US trader said. This idea is “not out of left field from an industry perspective, but from a US perspective” it is more surprising, they added.
Given the lengthy discussions, some expressed doubt that the US export ban would be implemented.
“[The Aluminum Association has] been talking about [an export ban] since the tariffs. This won’t happen,” a key US scrap exporter said.
Others were skeptical that the US domestic market could absorb the volumes that would be displaced.
“They do have good-sized smelters, but their purchasing price was never competitive on zorba compared to other destinations. Twitch, sometimes. The killer is actually domestic freight. Trucking is way too expensive, and the US landscape is huge,” another major scrap supplier to Asia said.
“Smelting costs would be similar I figured, but the sorting could be another story. The labor cost is still way cheaper in other countries than the US,” the supplier added.
A third supplier source questioned some of the justifications listed in the white paper, saying that “it makes no sense. UBC is not used in defense.”
“It’s honestly insulting [to] people that want to build up the domestic economy,” the second US scrap source said, expressing strong opposition to the association’s proposals.
On the buy side, consumers voiced concerns that the proposed ban would compound the existing inflationary pressure on UBC pricing. Thai buyers have already experienced some supply disruptions due to the Thai-Cambodia conflict, which caused delay in deliveries from the latter country.
Thailand was the US’ biggest export destination for UBC as of July 2025, accounting for 27.44% of market share, according to data from the US Census Bureau. It was followed by India, which accounted for 16.3%.
While the recommendations from the white paper noted that North American markets should remain open, only about 5.7% of US UBC exports were shipped to Mexico in January-July 2025.
Fastmarkets’ weekly price assessment for aluminium scrap, used beverage cans (Taldon), cif Southeast Asia was last at $2,000-2,050 per tonne on October 14.
Still, some consumers cautioned against exaggerating the ban’s effect on the Asian market.
“UBC is already very expensive, and it’s been difficult to find material. But I don’t think the impact on the [Asian] market will be too big because most UBC coming from the US is not very clean, and all the clean material is being sold to the US domestic market already anyway,” a Thai consumer said.
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