AEC Past Chairman Duncan Crowdis Over the past several years, each of us in the industry has had to assess and decide the role we felt compelled to play in this long-term battle for fair trade. In doing so, a question that constantly comes up: “Is my business being affected by this onslaught of imported Chinese extrusions or not?” While it is a simple question, finding the answer isn’t always obvious. There are two avenues to find the answer to this question. One is being able to put your finger on specific business--that either left when the imports were escalating or came back once the duties were applied. The other would be to assess the overall impact to your business as the industry absorbed the huge level of imports in 2009 and the early part of 2010. The first is the easy one. If you can put your finger on specific bits of business that either disappeared when Chinese imports were escalating dramatically in 2009 or, conversely, if you can identify specific bit...
The Aluminum Extruders Council (AEC) has led the U.S. aluminum extrusion industry in achieving level competition by winning tariff protection that offsets unfair trade practices of extruders/importers of aluminum profiles produced in China. Our efforts have been of enormous value to domestic extruders and suppliers. Conservatively, an estimated 800 million pounds per year of extrusions are being produced in the U. S. that would have otherwise been lost to China.