I bet you never thought you’d hear me say that, right? The Fair Trade Committee has worked hard over the last five years to create a fair and level playing field for aluminum extrusion shipments from China. Over the last couple of years we have seen a combined duty of approximately 42%. Even though we can’t say with certainty the rate will not change, it seems as though we have hit a plateau. One interpretation of this is that the U.S. government has looked at our case – now for the fourth time – and concluded that the tariff needed to level the playing field on a fair basis is 42%. It is on this basis that the AEC can now say it supports Chinese extrusions. Our ambition from the beginning was to find the right duty that accounts for the unfair and illegal trade practices of Chinese extruders that mercilessly dumped their products into our market during the Great Recession. Furthermore, it should be noted that if a Chinese exporter or an American impor...
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.