Aluminum Extruders Council reacts to DOC's delay in Zhongwang Case

The Aluminum Extruders Council (AEC) is disappointed that the Department of Commerce (DOC) has decided to delay its decision on the Scope Clarification/Circumvention filing against Chinese aluminium extruder Zhongwang Group. The AEC called for several governments, including the U.S., to investigate a variety of charges leveled against Zhongwang and its U.S. affiliates in the Dupre Report that surfaced last July.

“While the DOC postpones its decision, the U.S. aluminium extrusion industry is watching its trade orders, which it fought hard to win, being evaded by a renewed flood of unfairly traded aluminium for which there is no buyer,” said AEC Director of Operations and Fair Trade Committee director Jeff Henderson. According to the evidence provided in the AEC submission to the Department of Commerce, Zhongwang, through a series of affiliated exporters and U.S. importers, has poured billions of pounds of aluminium extrusions into the United States and Mexico in recent years, much of which just sits in warehouses and open fields. The evidence provided in the submission also demonstrates the lengths to which Zhongwang has systematically evaded the antidumping/countervailing duties by exporting extrusions into the U.S. in a variety forms, which have only one thing in common: they have been manipulated solely for the purpose of evading duties and should continue to be subject to the orders.

While the industry waits for Commerce to act, orders are lost, production is cut, and American workers are losing their jobs. “On behalf of AEC members, our industry, and those American workers, we demand the Department of Commerce launch an investigation of Zhongwang. Commerce should initiate an investigation and send Zhongwang and its affiliates questionnaires to explain its behavior and answer the compelling evidence before Commerce,” said Henderson.