Next year, 2022, will be the biggest year for the AEC’s Fair Trade Case since it was launched over 10 years ago.  So, my report his month is about our planning and preparation for all that we will be doing in 2022.  Transshipment, administrative reviews, EAPA cases, scope challenges, and of course, our Sunset Review will all be in full force next year.  Here is where we are now, as we prepare. The Fair Trade Committee is identifying the targets and scope of investigation for us to conduct in 2022.  With a new budget in place, we are empowered to begin. Several of you have been quite helpful.  Your inputs have helped us define exactly what it is we need to investigate.  I have been working with several of you in recent weeks to collect all we know to prep the investigators. We are convinced that transshipment is taking place.  Now, we need to gather the evidence.  As you know, this is not an area of work I can broadcast to the world (as much as I’d...

 Over the last few weeks, we have been working with our legal team to prepare for our Sunset Review.  We are now at a place where we need your help!  Later this month we will host a webinar to unveil this Review’s templates to capture our production and sales records.  The templates are essentially unchanged from our last review.  So, I don’t expect a lot of confusion about the data we need, but it does represent a lot of work! This Sunset Review could be much more challenging than our 2017 filing.  Our industry is strong.  Demand is up, lead times have been extended, and there have been huge investments made in plants, equipment, and people over the last ten years.  By some measure, it could be claimed that we are healthy and strong and ready to take on China without the duties.  However, we all know this is a ridiculous conclusion. Instead, we will want to argue that the only reason our industry has recovered and prospered is the fact that ...

 During the Aluminum Summit in September, members heard a lot about our Fair Trade case and the tasks in front of us.  I wanted to use this opportunity to discuss the key issues and our path forward.  From Scope Challenges to the Sunset Review, the next 12 months may be the busiest time ever for our case. The Sunset Review process is upon us.  October will feature two webinars for members this year to help you prepare for the case.  One for the production and financial piece, and one for the commercial side.   While the templates we will fill out haven’t changed much, the climate in which we seek a renewal of orders has.  Business is strong for extruders now.  From a layman’s point of view, our industry is rock solid.  Orders are strong, new equipment has been installed, and records are being set by extruders across the country.  However, this environment has brought a significant increase in imports.  Currently, imports have a...

 As you have been following for several months now, the AEC has been engaged in several legal battles with Kingtom, the Chinese owned and operated extrusion plant in the Dominican Republic.  To date, three separate EAPA filings have been made, and all have been successful.  Now, the legal arena has moved to our Annual Administrative Review in both our anti-dumping (AD) and subsidy (CVD) cases.  Just last week the Department of Commerce (DOC) issued its preliminary decision in this year’s review.  Commerce issued its preliminary results in the AD case on July 30.  Kingtom, the sole mandatory respondent, received the 86.01% China-wide rate, as did the other 84 companies for which we did not rescind our administrative review request.  In the CVD case, Kingtom and two other companies received the 242.15% China-wide rate, and three companies received the 16.08% ‘all others’ rate.  Until Kingtom can prove to the DOC that all exports from its operation c...

Enforcement, the Aluminum 232, scope challenges, and our upcoming Sunset Review will be generating a lot of activity in our trade case in the coming months.  This month, I want to walk through the key issues we will be handling during the balance of this year and into 2022.   At the top of the list is enforcement.  The Aluminum Extruders Council is currently working on two Enforce and Protect Act (EAPA) claims and a scope challenge in the Kingtom matter.  Having won preliminary decisions in both EAPA claims, our focus has moved to finalizing those decisions before the end of 2021 and using the basis for our victory to defend ourselves against the scope challenge Kingtom filed a couple of weeks ago.  In that scope challenge, Kingtom claims they should be excluded from any duties because all the extrusions exported to the U.S. were produced in the Dominican Republic.  This, of course, flies in the face of the findings from Customs that Kingtom did in fac...

 Defending the AEC orders continues to be a topic that impacts our Administrative Review, scope issues, and EAPA filings.  Also, this month the AEC prepares to engage the Department of Commerce again on the Aluminum 232 and introduces the Aluminum Monitoring System to its members. We start with our ongoing Enforce and Protect Act (EAPA) cases against Kingtom.  U.S. Customs and Border Protection’s (CBP) administrative review of our Kingtom EAPA case affirmed its original results, finding substantial evidence that the seven importers subject to the investigation evaded the AD/CVD Orders on Aluminum Extrusions from China.  CBP’s determination relied on several factors, including that Kingtom did not produce merchandise equal to the quantities it was exporting and that Kingtom had strong ties with China, inferring that Kingtom was able to supplement its exports of any aluminum extrusions produced in the Dominican Republic with Chinese extrusions.  CBP stated, “{W}he...

 While the Aluminum Extruders Council continues its legal battle with Kingtom through the Enforce and Protect Act (EAPA) process, the Department of Commerce (DOC) delivered a disappointing decision in the Reflections scope case.  We will discuss both decisions in this month’s article.  Additionally, imports continue to rebound after a drop during the more intense days of the global pandemic. On May 3, 2021, Customs and Border Patrol (CBP) imposed interim measures in our EAPA case against Kingtom.  The interim measures now require “China” duties to be put in place.  The final determination deadline is November 29, 2021.  We will have an opportunity to submit written arguments and rebuttal written arguments in advance of that deadline.  This is a significant win in our mission to stop illegal and unfair trade activities by the Chinese.  It also puts other Chinese-owned operations operating in third countries on notice that the AEC will take all nece...

 Last month the Aluminum Extruders Council (AEC) met with the Department of Commerce (DOC) to discuss our concerns with the Aluminum 232.  This meeting, which I was told we would never get because the new administration was simply too busy with their transition into power, was a direct result of our email campaign to our legislators last month executed by you, the members.  I want to call out Guy Charpentier with Bonnell Aluminum for his effort and result.  Working through the newly elected Senator Warnock’s office, Guy was able to persuade them to set this meeting up for us.  And, they did! It was an excellent meeting.  We were happy to see several officials from the DOC attend, including the person responsible for the entire 232 program.  I had met with him earlier when the 232 was being considered.  I warned him of several risks to our market if the 232 was enacted.  This meeting set us up for a bit of a “I told you so!” moment.  The...

 Over the last month our industry has seen several issues settled in our favor, and one that is not.  While our trade case against China has had a series of positive outcomes, the Trump Administration left us a problem to deal with in the aluminum Section 232 issue. The 8th Administrative Review in our countervailing duty (CVD) case just concluded.  All but two Chinese extruders will be subject to a 242% duty.  The two Chinese extruders that participated in the review will have a CVD rate of 16%.  The results from the 8th Administrative Review anti-dumping (AD)case are pending. An announcement is expected anytime.  We anticipate the rates to remain at 86%.  This is good news.  If the AD rates hold, this means to total tariff for Chinese imports will be 328%, except for two companies, which will get a rate of 102%.  This rate has proven itself to be effective in holding Chinese imports to less than 1% of our market.  This was good news! O...

 Some months ago, I wrote that there were several matters in our case that were under review and pending decisions.  Once those decisions were made, we would then see a series of great results.  Now, here they come.  Having seen two such wins in the last couple of weeks I am now more certain than ever that many more are coming. This month we heard from the Department of Commerce about the Enforce and Protect Act (EAPA) case filed by Ta Chen against Kingtom in the Dominican Republic.  The verdict was clear and Kingtom lost.  This is a significant win for us, even though we did not file it.  However, we have filed our own case against Kingtom and we expect that decision on January 21, 2021.  The DOC is finding that Kingtom did circumvent our trade orders by co-mingling Chinese-produced aluminum extrusions with Dominican product.  These cases are kept under wraps, and we are not allowed to publicly discuss until certain thresholds in the case ar...