AEC  Past Chairman Duncan Crowdis Many are questioning whether the recent drive by the Chinese Extrusion Industry to export products off-shore, and particularly into the North American market, is a long term play or simply a temporary solution to satisfy a short term supply-demand imbalance while their domestic demand improves. It’s a great question and once you look at the data there is an obvious answer and it is about supply and demand. Clearly the domestic industry has been expanding its capacity well beyond the requirement to supply domestic needs within China. First of all let’s consider the domestic demand in China for aluminum extrusions. In looking at the trend over the past decade, it has been anything but anemic. With domestic GDP running well into the double digits over this period, the demand for aluminum extrusions in the Transportation and Building and Construction industries alone have been able to support a significant increase in domestic capacity. S...

AEC Board of Directors Member Jeff Henderson I’m delighted to contribute to the Aluminum Extruders Council’s blog, So far the topics have been devoted to the Chinese aluminum extrusion imports trade case with the United States. Like me, many of you have volunteered your time, energy, and resources to this case.  For those on the Fair Trade Committee, we have learned a valuable lesson: this case is not going away!  The number of hours, the attention to detail--and yes, the money--has all been much greater than we ever imagined.  Those that continue to support illegal and unfair trade practices have been persistent in their mission to find cracks in the original orders.  As a result, scores of appeals, scope requests, court decisions, and even legislative actions have pummeled our industry in an effort to find those cracks. After nearly 18 months of defending the orders, it is clear that we have the talent, drive, and resources required to preserve the orders...