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| AEC Past Chairman Duncan Crowdis |
What we DID KNOW was that the industry’s future was at
stake. We had done enough research to understand what China was doing and why (to be
covered in a future blog) and that the 20% market share that they had taken was
not going to be their stopping point. Something had to be done or we strongly
believed that we would eventually lose the bulk of our market. What we also
knew was that extruders are generally passionate about their businesses. It has
been a lifetime’s livelihood for many of us, often starting with our parents
and now one in which many of our children are counting on for their livelihood.
No – while the Chinese are obviously formidable, what they were doing was and
is predatory and illegal and we weren’t about to let them do this to us.
What we didn’t truly understand is where the process we
faced was going to take us. Our original understanding was that it was a front-end-loaded
process – a lot of work and information to pull together as we prepared our
original case presented to the U.S. Department of Commerce and the
International Trade Commission (ITC). Following a successful outcome, defined
by duties being levied against imports from China , we anticipated the following
steps:
- A year or two of work to fight some potential appeals and what are called “scope requests”, which are requests for clarification from a U.S. importer who believes the products they import from China do not fall under the scope of the Department of Commerce orders
- We also knew there would be an annual “administrative review” but were led to believe this was just a “minor” formality
- And finally, every 5 years there would be what is termed a “sunset review”, which basically opens up the case to ensure there is still dumping and subsidies going on and, if so, the domestic industry remains “in harm’s way” because of them
Chock it up to naivety, a victim of our own success or the
luck of the draw, but in our case, from the time we won the case in April 2011,
we have battled over 50 scope requests (a number of them very involved and
complex) and over half a dozen appeals. On top of that, the annual
administrative reviews are turning out to be anything but a “non-event” with
more than 70 importers and Chinese producers entering a challenge to the level
of duties. While not quite as complex and demanding as the original case, it is
not far from it.
What this means is time and money. These cases are very
technical and legally complex requiring the expertise of a specialized legal
firm which, of course, is not inexpensive.
The time commitment for those involved in the case is significant, often
taking several days a week of time--time away from our businesses that are
always in need of our focus. In addition, a number of us have travelled to
Washington on multiple occasions to meet with staff at Commerce, the ITC and
our various members of Congress.
Our learning is that this process, at least in our case, is
NOT simply a front-end-loaded two- or three-year project. It is likely a
process that will go on for many years to come.
As naive as we were when we started this process, we are no
less passionate today than we were in in 2009. We took on this case because we
believed the industry was in peril. We believe that today more than ever.
The AEC has responded by settling in for the long haul by committing
an appropriate level of resources and establishing an infrastructure and fund
raising process that will allow us to keep fighting to maintain the benefits of
this hard-fought win for years to come.
For more information on the AEC Fair Trade...It Matters! campaign visit www.AECfairtrade.org.
This post was written by AEC Past Chairman Duncan Crowdis
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