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! Of course, high tariffs bring circumvention effort
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.