Aluminum Extruders Council (AEC) continues its fight against the flood of Chinese aluminium extrusions to US.
After long persuasion from US aluminium representatives like AEC and Aluminium Association, In March 2016, the U.S. Department of Commerce (DOC) issued a circumvention decision in the Aluminium Extruders’ petition against China Zhongwang. The DOC confirmed that 5050 alloyed aluminium extrusions are not specifically targeted by its orders. However, it initiated an anti-circumvention investigation in order to determine if there is any circumvention of AD/CVD duties in the imports of 5050 alloyed extrusions.
The Department concluded that, “based on the information provided by Petitioner, the Department finds there is sufficient basis to initiate an anti-circumvention inquiry, pursuant to sections 781(c) and 781(d) of the Act.”
Aluminum Extruders Council (AEC) has always been working towards achieving level competition in the global trade. They also helped the U.S. aluminium extrusion industry in winning tariff protection that offsets unfair trade practices of extruders and importers of Chinese aluminium profiles
The 5050-series circumvention/scope cases AEC filed against Zhongwang are moving to its next stage. According to AEC no Chinese extruder has come forward to challenge the base case yet. They are following up on the decision Department of Commerce (DOC) on their decision to send questionnaires out to all suspected importers and exporters of 5050-series aluminium extrusions. They believe this is necessary in order to make a decision on this scheme. They have filed a pallet case against Zhongwang and submitted their questionnaire. They insist that the so-called pallets are disguised fabricated extrusions and are therefore subject to duties.
AEC pushed Department of Commerce and The International Trade Commission (ITC) to continue with the duties on Chinese extrusions which would safeguard the domestic extrusion industry. ITC organized a sunset review on the antidumping duty (AD) and countervailing duty (CVD) duties that were instituted in 2011. During the review, US Department of Commerce opined that eliminating duties on Chinese aluminium extrusions is likely to encourage more dumping and continuation of government subsidized products from China into US market.
Going by the Commerce estimate, if the duties were lifted, the amount of dumping would justify weighted-average dumping margins of up to 33.28 per cent. The amount of net countervailable subsidies would be 12.05-374.15 per cent, depending on the producer or exporter if duty is lifted, Commerce reasoned.
The International Trade Commission (ITC) decided on a 3-3 vote to conduct a full review of the duties. The decision extends the timeline to close the issue of duties on Chinese extrusions. However, AEC however, sticks to its agenda and hopes to continue its fight for a level playing field.
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