The dynamic model of the Electric Power Steering (EPS) system for electric forklifts and the two-degree-of-freedom (2DOF) forklift models has been established. Based on the control target of electric forklift EPS, a generalized EPS control model with model perturbation and interference is established. The standard H∞control model of the EPS system is transformed, and the EPS generalized state equation of electric forklift is derived. The principle of robust control with genetic optimization is expounded, aiming at the parameters optimization of the weighted function of H∞control model, the constraint function of the genetic algorithm (GA) is constructed, and the robust controller of genetic optimization is derived. Taking the electric forklift TFC20 as the research object, according to the actual data on the forklift, the system model is established in MATLAB, and the effects of PID control, robust control, and genetic robust control are compared, the results show that the power steering characteristic of the robust control is better than the power steering characteristic of the PID control, and the stability of the forklift under the control of robust control is better. Also, the power steering characteristic of the H∞ controller with GA optimization is better than that of an unoptimized one, and its robustness is better, under external pavement interference, the following ability is stronger for the ideal current and the steering is more stable.