EU carbon tariff sows havoc in China as steel firms grapple with ‘absurd’ rules

EU carbon tariff sows havoc in China as steel firms grapple with ‘absurd’ rulesThe system is creating huge new compliance burdens for China’s steel firms, with smaller producers using greener technology often hit hardest7-MIN READ7-MIN2ListenPublished: 6:00am, 16 Jun 2026Updated: 6:04am, 16 Jun 2026As trade tensions between Beijing and Brussels continue to rise, China’s firms in the European Union have been forced to walk a delicate tightrope: expanding their presence in the lucrative market while grappling with heightened regulatory hurdles and rapid geopolitical shifts. In the first part of this three-part series, we look at a new, complex EU carbon tariff system that has business owners scratching their heads.Neil Miao has been exporting metal hardware to Europe for years. But earlier this year, his purchase orders began arriving with a new document that threatened to throw the deals into disarray.It was a complex, multi-tabbed spreadsheet demanding row upon row of technical data: from exact factory coordinates to the carbon intensity of upstream materials. Miao’s small company in northern China’s Hebei province had no ability to track – or often even understand – the metrics.Select VoiceSelect Speed0.8x0.9x1.0x1.1x1.2x1.5x1.75x00:0000:001.00x