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It’s Getting Hot in the Dominican Republic

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Events are unfolding rapidly in the Dominican Republic.  During our Annual Meeting last March, we discussed the Work Release Order (WRO) we filed based on the explosive report from Customs and Border Protection (CBP) from their onsite inspection at the Kingtom facility in the Dominican Republic last fall.  In that report, Customs officials claim they received about 50 notes and texts from Dominican workers at the plant about worker abuse.  Just as we were prepared to kick off a massive public relations campaign to inform D.C. about our WRO, news surfaced that the Dominican government has closed Kingtom due to worker abuse.  

Wow!  This unexpected development has helped us achieve our objective of stopping illegal and unfair trade activities from Kingtom.  Even so, we are following this closely on the ground and will still demand our government address our WRO and find in our favor.  We do not want to be dependent upon the Dominican government in this matter, but given their aggressive stance, our tactics may change.  This is a great development, and we certainly hope it sticks! 

Elsewhere, our Sunset Review is still in the preliminary phase.  We are making our final filings, which are in response to questions from the International Trade Administration, who governs the matter.  We are still hopeful and confident that the process will end at this stage and free up much needed financial resources for other matters in our case. 

Chiefly, those resources can be used to address other illegal and unfair trade practices we are researching in Latin America.  China is clearly using Latin America as a dumping ground for extrusions, scrap, billet, and even ingot.  We will continue to gather data, and once a case can be made, we will launch it.  Having the Sunset Review behind us by this summer will be a huge enabler to this effort. 

Two other Enforce and Protect Acts (EAPAs) have been filed by individual companies.  We are not at liberty to discuss details, but I can report that one of them represents about 50 million pounds per year, and the other will set a huge precedent for us in automotive parts.  We are assisting these petitioners in every way possible. 

Look for breaking news in the coming weeks about these issues and other developments.  Your support has made this possible.  So, I want to thank you for it.   

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