Canada‑to‑Europe aluminum reroutes flagged

Canada’s aluminum trade has started to bend toward Europe after the United States raised its Section 232 tariff on aluminum to 25% in February 2025 and tightened metal tariffs again on April 2, 2026. (whitehouse.gov) The White House said in Proclamation 10895, dated February 10, 2025, that aluminum articles and derivative aluminum articles from all countries would face a 25% ad valorem tariff. A second proclamation on April 2, 2026, said the administration was again strengthening its tariff regime for aluminum, steel and copper. (whitehouse.gov, whitehouse.gov) Canada still sends most of its aluminum south. Natural Resources Canada said the United States took 91% of Canada’s aluminum export value in 2024, while the Netherlands took 1% and Mexico took 2%. (natural-resources.canada.ca) But the European market has room to absorb more metal. Eurostat said the European Union imported €29.5 billion of aluminum and related articles in 2024 and ran an €11.1 billion trade deficit in the category, meaning the bloc bought far more than it sold. (ec.europa.eu) Industry and market reporting in 2025 pointed to a real diversion, not just a theory. Bloomberg reported on September 8, 2025, that Quebec aluminum exports going to the United States fell to 78% in the second quarter from 95% in the first quarter as producers including Alcoa and Aluminerie Alouette redirected shipments to Europe. (bloomberg.com) Trade data cited by market publication AlCircle showed the same pattern in spring 2025. It reported shipments from Canada to the Netherlands of 11,800 tonnes and to Italy of 25,500 tonnes in April and May 2025, while U.S. imports of primary aluminum from Canada fell to 268,000 tonnes in May, the lowest level since December 2022. (alcircle.com) Ottawa has described trade diversion as a policy problem in its own right. In a June 19, 2025 release, Finance Minister François-Philippe Champagne said Canada would impose new steel tariff-rate quotas at 100% of 2024 levels for non-free-trade-agreement partners to prevent “harmful trade diversion” caused by United States actions, and said more aluminum measures were coming. (canada.ca) Canada also kept its own counter-tariffs on U.S. steel, aluminum and automobiles after removing many other retaliatory duties on September 1, 2025. The Finance Department said those metal tariffs stayed because the United States kept its sector tariffs in place without a Canada-United States-Mexico Agreement exemption. (canada.ca) For U.S. buyers, the supply risk is straightforward: the United States depends heavily on Canadian primary metal. The Aluminium Association of Canada says Canada supplies 75% of U.S. imported primary aluminum and more than 60% of annual U.S. consumption. (aluminium.ca) That leaves manufacturers exposed when tariffs change trade routes faster than smelters can change output. The Aluminum Association says its industry statistics cover 100% of primary aluminum production in the United States and Canada, underscoring how concentrated the North American supply base is even before any cargoes are rerouted across the Atlantic. (aluminum.org) The YouTube claim lands in a trade system where the United States is still Canada’s main aluminum customer, Europe is a large net importer, and both Washington and Ottawa are still using metal tariffs as policy tools. That combination is what makes even a partial Canada-to-Europe shift worth watching. (natural-resources.canada.ca, ec.europa.eu, canada.ca)