The summer of 2022 has been a disappointment to our Fair Trade efforts. We continue to see our share of the domestic market shrink as foreign competitors enjoy a discount to U.S. aluminum prices, courtesy of the U.S. Aluminum 232. The lack of minimum aluminum content requirements in the USMCA is creating a new threat south of our border. China’s Belt and Road strategy has established a growing extrusion operation in the Dominican Republic with rumors of more facilities to come in Latin America. Our trade case continues to battle key scope issues with an administration that seems to have a deaf ear to our position. Trade enforcement wins have turned to defeats without so much as an explanation. This horrible combination of self-defeating U.S. policy and an administration in place that has been the softest defender of U.S. industry since Obama that left us in a position that requires us to make some very difficult decisions. The aftermath of Customs’ inexplicable reversal in all
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.