Aluminum Association criticizes Section 232 tariff exemption process and suggests corrections

The Aluminum Association has expressed its concern over the Section 232 tariff exemption process of the DOC in a statement submitted to the Department of Commerce. According to the association exemptions were granted to massive volumes of metal including Chinese Common Alloy Sheet & Plate. 

Till date 4333 published requests have been submitted and 981 requests have been reviewed and published. This, according to the association is out of sync with the pace of business. The association feels the lack of adequate tracking system and analysis by the department makes it difficult for stakeholders to identify relevant requests.  Further, the department has not made clear the appropriate basis for an objection.

In many cases, the exclusion request themselves fail to properly identify key information like alloy designation or indicate the import volume associated with a country of origin. The association feels, in some cases, the Commerce Department has granted exclusions for massive volumes of imported aluminium, distorting the U.S. market and undermining the purpose of the tariffs.

The Commerce Department ironically has approved massive volumes of imported common alloy aluminium sheet and plates against which it initiated an antidumping/countervailing duty (AD/CVD) case one year ago.

The Association notes that the nearly 2 billion pounds of common alloy sheet exclusion requests granted to just a few companies is greater than the total volume of U.S. imports in 2017 and equates to more than 40 per cent of all domestic consumption of the product. The Association thinks a large portion of these products could be common alloy sheet imports from China.

Since common alloy aluminium sheet is a basic, flat-rolled aluminium product manufactured in significant volumes by domestic producers, claims that this product is not available from domestic sources are absolutely false, the Association says. Such exclusions offer unfair advantage and encourage more imports. 

The Association has urged DOC to review and revoke exclusion requests granted based on false information and undertake additional efforts to ensure that the Section 232 exclusion process is open, transparent and avoids negative consequences for the U.S. aluminium industry.

 It has also urged the DOC to provide stakeholders a clear method to review exclusion requests.

The Association further requests to publish a quarterly report on the ongoing process and fully evaluate all exclusion requests – including those for which no objections are filed – to ensure that the volumes requested are proportional to the U.S. market.

The Association also has requested DOC to clarify the objective of the product exclusion process to better guide producers and customers in filing exclusion request and objections and to adopt a monitoring system for aluminium imports to understand the import flows from countries that pose a circumvention threat.

 The Aluminum Association has also suggested that trade actions should focus on the specific and acute problem of Chinese aluminium overcapacity.