This month we received two terrific decisions out of Washington D.C. The first was the report by the Wall Street Journal that Liu Zhongtian, founder of China ZhongWang, has been indicted by a federal grand jury on charges that he evaded nearly $2 billion in tariffs as part of a conspiracy to smuggle massive quantities of aluminum into the U.S. The second was the final decision being made in our circumvention case against Vietnam. First, Mr. Liu. The AEC has been in a state of conflict with ZhongWang (ZW) since before we won our case. ZhongWang and its affiliates were the number one exporter of aluminum extrusions into the U.S. prior to our filing. Reports indicate that anywhere from 65-85% of all extrusions dumped into the U.S. from 2008-2010 were from ZW or its business affiliates. Many of us will remember Peng Cheng, as one example. Then the AEC exposed the perplexing mountain of extrusions produced in China and shipped to the Mexican desert, which led to the attempt to
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.