— By Plasteurope.com staff — 

Even after US President Donald Trump suspended many of the originally announced punitive tariffs for 90 days, there is a lot of uncertainty in the plastics industry. How do European processors see the existing and potentially impending tariffs impacting their operations and competitiveness?

A recent survey by European Plastics Converters (EuPC, Brussels; www.plasticsconverters.eu) in collaboration with, among others, German plastics packaging industry association IK (Bad Homburg; www.kunststoffverpackungen.de) has now revealed that 72% of processors expect rising US tariffs to have a negative impact on their business.

The survey was conducted from 4-10 April 2025, with 140 processors from 12 European countries taking part.

Expectations of a possible decline in export volumes over the next 12 months due to new US tariffs vary, however. Only 30% of converters do not expect their export volumes to fall. The remaining companies forecast a decline of varying degrees, with a peak of 15% of respondents expecting the drop in volumes to exceed 10%.

Related: US punitive tariffs cause uncertainty among plastics processors

The survey also shows that suppliers to the food, automotive, and construction industries are particularly affected. “The impact is all the more significant as the vast majority of companies in the sector are small and medium-sized enterprises,” said Laura Müller, economic officer at the IK.

Less than half of the companies surveyed are affected by possible EU countertariffs on US polyethylene. Of respondents, 55% do not import any PE from the US, and 21% cover a maximum of 10% of their requirements with US imports. Only a smaller proportion of the sector has “medium” (8%), “large” and “very large” (14%) dependencies on shipments from the US.

According to Müller, the survey results show that the EU must respond to the threat of US punitive tariffs with a united front if it does not want to jeopardise the competitiveness of European plastics processors.