Two of the most construction-specific line items in the Census steel report are running against the national trend, and they’re the two that show up in a structural bid.
Preliminary August figures released Thursday put U.S. steel imports at $2.1 billion and 2,129,076 metric tons, 3.4% above final July by tonnage and 25.2% above August 2025. That sounds like a recovery until you read the year-to-date line. Through July, final data show 12.3 million tonnes imported against 15.3 million over the same period last year. Down 19.6%.
Where the exceptions are
Heavy structural shapes came in at 119,727 tonnes in August against 57,562 tonnes a year earlier, an increase of 108%, on $118.2 million of value. Reinforcing bars ran 88,878 tonnes against 36,017 last August, up 147%, at $48.7 million. Structural pipe and tube nearly doubled, 48,348 tonnes against 24,728.
Both of the big two are off their July peaks, though. Structural shapes fell 7.9% from July’s 130,002 tonnes; rebar dropped 20.9% from 112,306. Steel piling is the most volatile of the group: 5,848 tonnes in August against 1,618 last year, but down 69% from July’s 18,999.
Census singles out heavy structural shapes and reinforcing bars as the categories running up year to date, against an import total that is down by a fifth. That is a fairly narrow finger pointing at where domestic supply is tightest.
Read the preliminary label
August is preliminary data. Census states that preliminary import value runs about 96% of final, and warns explicitly that preliminary figures at the individual category and country level have been “less consistently predictive of the final data” than the aggregate. A 108% year-over-year move in one category on preliminary data is a signal, not a settled number.
The year-to-date figures through July are final. Mixing the two in one sentence without saying which is which is how a 19.6% decline and a 147% increase end up sounding contradictory. They aren’t. They’re different periods and different vintages.
None of it is seasonally adjusted.
Country mix is rearranging
August increases came primarily from Brazil, Mexico and India, with decreases from Korea, Taiwan and Indonesia. Year to date through July the pattern is close to inverted: the largest decreases are Canada, Brazil and Mexico, with increases from Korea, Indonesia and Argentina.
For a fabricator, that churn is the operational story. Origin shifts mean new mill qualifications, different certification paperwork and lead times that don’t match the ones in last year’s estimate. Steel lead times had already stretched to 55 weeks by mid-September, enough that data center developers started asking about timber.
The next release lands 27 October.
Source: U.S. Census Bureau, 2026-09-24.