Iron ore buckling

Thursday 20 March 2025

Steel prices are in free fall as tariffs mount. The iron ore jaws are wide.

Macquarie has thrown in the towel now.

Macquarie, a global financial services group, predicted the seaborne iron ore market will be in surplus by about 50 million tons this year as China is likely to cut steel production. If steel production is forced to be reduced, China’s steel output is expected to drop by 2.5% to 858 million tons in 2025, and iron ore demand will decrease by 37 million tons accordingly.

The full text of this article is available to MacroBusiness subscribers

$1 for your first month, then:

$24.99 / month

$249 / year

Cancel at any time through our billing provider, Stripe

About the author

David Llewellyn-Smith is Chief Strategist at the MB Fund and MB Super. David is the founding publisher and editor of MacroBusiness and was the founding publisher and global economy editor of The Diplomat, the Asia Pacific’s leading geo-politics and economics portal. He is also a former gold trader and economic commentator at The Sydney Morning Herald, The Age, the ABC and Business Spectator. He is the co-author of The Great Crash of 2008 with Ross Garnaut and was the editor of the second Garnaut Climate Change Review.