Skip to main content

Progress Made on AD Case and GAEs for Aluminum Extrusions

Written by Jason Weber, V.P. of Government Affairs, Aluminum Extruders Council.

May proved to be a significant month for Trade and Government Affairs in the world of aluminum extrusions. At the beginning of May, the Department of Commerce (DOC) announced the affirmative determination on the anti-dumping (AD) portion of the trade case brought by the U.S. Aluminum Extruders Coalition (USAEC). You can read the announcement HERE. With the preliminary determination anti-dumping and countervailing duties announced against the subject countries, duty collection has begun and will be assessed against the importer of record. In between the preliminary determination and final hearing (September), Commerce will continue to collect information and potentially adjust the rates set during the preliminary determination.

Another significant announcement on May 20 came from the Bureau of Industry and Security (BIS) within the DOC, which adjusted the General Approved Exclusions (GAEs) on Section 232 tariffs. Read the announcement HERE. The removal of certain HTS codes from the GAEs will be effective July 1, 2024. As you’ll notice in the publication from BIS, the changes made thus far are the direct result of the comments submitted by the AEC in 2023 and additional influence from our Congressional letter-writing campaign. Thank you to all who participated. While we are pleased with the results thus far, the AEC must continue to push for additional HTS codes to be removed from the GAEs. Additionally, with the removal of certain HTS codes from the GAEs, the exclusion application process will be restarted on July 1. Therefore, the AEC will be working with membership and legal counsel to develop a process for gathering support and objecting to exclusion requests submitted to BIS.

The International Trade Commission (ITC) investigation 332 GHG Emissions Intensities Facility Level Questionnaire for Aluminum is in full swing. As a reminder, if you received a questionnaire the due date is June 8, 2024. Many thanks to Shane Tredup of Custom Aluminum Products Inc., and AEC Consultant Lynn Brown of Long Point Associates, for their work with the ITC in clarifying the data requirements for the questionnaire and hosting a member webinar. If you did not get a chance to attend the webinar you can view the event recording on the AECTech Webinar page HERE. (Note: you must be signed in as an AEC member to access this page. For help, please contact us at mail@aec.org.) 

Comments

Popular posts from this blog

A Nice Win to Start the Year!

 For months you’ve read my blog posts bemoaning the terrible decisions coming out of Washington D.C. related to our case.  Well, with the New Year, we have a fresh start.  And it’s a good one!  The industry has won its first Enforce and Protect Act (EAPA) case involving fencing extrusions.  On December 20, 2023, Fortress withdrew its request for an administrative review, prompting U.S. Customs & Border Protection (CBP) to terminate the administrative review entirely. Termination of the review makes the CBP’s affirmative determination of evasion final.  When terminating the review, CBP clarified that termination does not in any way preclude CBP or other agencies from pursuing additional enforcement actions against Fortress or imposing penalties should the need arise. The other EAPA fencing case is pending, and it appears the respondent is not participating.  We submitted voluntary factual information and the company in question did not submit writte...

Keep That Ram Moving Forward

By Jason Weber, AEC VP of Government Affairs   On June 17 th , the International Trade Commission (ITC) will issue the Final Producer Questionnaire in the Aluminum Extrusion AD/CVD cases .  The questionnaire is due 30 days after it is issued .  As always, we continue to update membership with Trade Alerts as appropriate to keep them informed .  Beyond the Final Producer Questionnaire, key upcoming dates are the Final Hearing on September 9, 2024, the Final Vote on October 23, 2024, and the Final Determination on November 11 , 2024.   In last month’s essentiALs article and Fair Trade blog post, I outlined the recent Department of Commerce (DOC) changes to the 232 Aluminum Tariffs .  In that article, I outlined the following Harmonized Tariff Schedule (HTS) codes that were removed from the General Approved Exclusions (GAEs):    GAE. 1.A : HTS 7609000000 (Aluminum tube or pipe fittings (for example, couplings, elbows, sleeves);   GAE. 4.A : ...

Aluminum 232 Exclusion/Objection Process in Full Swing

Since our last update, the 232 exclusion/objection process is in full swing.  Over the last several weeks we have continued to refine the workflow and communication of the exclusion requests to make sure membership continues to receive the communications and objects when appropriate. For those members that have been working through the process we at AEC HQ thank you.  If for some reason you’re an AEC Extruder Member who should be receiving these communications, please let me know at jweber@tso.net and we’ll make sure you’re added to the distribution list. Although there are new companies submitting requests, we continue to see the same entities entering the bulk of the exclusion requests.  However, for the most part the exclusion requests are much the same with slight changes here and there.  This does simplify the objection process in a way where similar objections can be filed for multiple exclusion requests. As a reminder, price is not a valid reason for a company...