Last month we reported that we found ourselves in-between announcements from the Administration about a number of issues.  This month we have our answers, whether we like them or not!  Over the last few days the AEC has issued a number of Trade Alerts about the President’s decision to re-impose the aluminum 232 tariffs on Canada. Those new orders will only cover unalloyed, unwrought aluminum.  No downstream products were included in this decision.  Shortly thereafter, Canada retaliated by imposing a 10% tariff on several aluminum related products from the United States, including aluminum extrusions.  Since then, Canadian manufacturers, much like those in the U.S. did, voiced their opposition to Prime Minister Trudeau’s decision.  So, there we have it.After the dust settles, U.S. extruders expected Trump’s reinstatement of the 232 tariffs might bring about raw material price parity with Canada.  Whether that plays out or not is left to be seen.  Nevertheless, even if parity on raw ma…

This month we find ourselves in a waiting game.  We are awaiting word on the proposal to re-impose 232 aluminum duties on imports from Canada, and possibly Mexico.  We are waiting on word about a key scope challenge concerning a curtain wall product.  We are waiting to see which Chinese extruders the Department of Commerce (DOC) selects for this year’s Administrative Review.  As we have seen in the past, there often comes a time when all the pinwheels are turning that we have to wait and see how it plays out.

Now, as you know, we haven’t been sitting back over the last few weeks, or even months.  Instead, we joined voices to re-state our case that the 232 aluminum tariffs should be removed and our industry allowed to purchase metal at the global price.  We’ve worked hard in our filings to the DOC about key scope challenges like the curtain wall case and more recently, solar mounting systems.  Furthermore, we are leaning on the DOC to persuade them to select the Chinese extruders in th…

There are a number of issues we will cover in this month’s report.Our 9th Administrative Review is getting ready to begin.New and old scope challenges are in the queue.Other matters in the trade arena have emerged from monitoring systems to the 232.
We have requested administrative reviews in the antidumping (AD) and countervailing duties (CVD) cases on 95 producers and exporters of extrusions from China, largely based on the Port Import/Export Reporting Service-PIERS data. We requested a review on the company we believe to be Kingtom’s Chinese parent, Fujian Minfa Aluminum, as well as Kingtom itself. Kingtom also requested a review of both orders, as did one of the importers subject to the Kingtom Enforce and Protect Act (EAPA) allegation, Global Aluminum Distributor. Kingtom and Global Aluminum Distributor requested that the review be postponed by a year and consolidated with the next review cycle. This delay would give the company time to cook their books and delays their current …

The news of our win in the CCM solar mount case was well earned, indeed.Having lost a solar mount case a few years ago, our ability to prevail this time was enabled by our victory in court in a matter involving kitchen appliance handles.We worked to get that win in the Meridian/appliance handle case because of the precedent it would set.That precedent speaks to the core of our scope: fabricated aluminum extrusions that are kitted are subject merchandise, as long as that kit is NOT a final and finished product once assembled.The last administration took the opinion that subassemblies should be considered a final completed product.As a result, we lost four key decisions, one of which was solar mounting systems.The Fair Trade Committee decided that, should we win the Meridian case on the grounds we sought, then we should re-fight these applications as they become available for us to do so.That is what we did here, and we won!
We do have a few other updates this month concerning our case…

With the renewal of our trade orders against China a year away, our recent focus in the China case has been on pending scope exclusion requests and reports of transshipment activity. I will briefly discuss those items with you this month.

Reflection Window resubmitted its initial scope request on January 9, 2020, in response to the DOC’s supplemental questionnaire of September 23, 2019. Its original request fell under the “finished goods kits” exclusion, and it has resubmitted under that exclusion but indicated that it also intends to submit an exclusion request under the finished merchandise exclusion. We have submitted an extension request for the final determination (currently scheduled for February 24, 2020). This is critical case for our industry. Having won decisively in the curtain wall cases in recent years, now the Chinese are attempting to imitate curtain wall with this hybrid product. We will be watching this case carefully.

The AEC is also watching the changes in tariffs b…