AEC joins coalition of manufacturers opposed to automatically granting China market economy status

The Aluminum Extruders Council (AEC), Wauconda, Ill., has joined Manufacturers for Trade Enforcement, a coalition of U.S. industry trade groups opposed to the automatic granting of market economy status for China at the end of 2016. AEC joins The Aluminum Association, American Iron & Steel Institute, Metals Service Center Institute, Forging Industry Association, and more than 15 other groups.

China has claimed that it should be automatically accorded treatment as if it were a market economy after the 15th anniversary of its accession to the World Trade Organization in December 2016. U.S. law requires that the Department of Commerce make a market economy status determination based on established criteria, which many experts agree that China has not met.

In Q4 2009 China imports accounted for nearly one-fifth of the entire U.S. market. Years of advocacy by the AEC has turned the tide in the North American aluminum extrusion industry’s struggle to level the playing field in the international fair trade arena, AEC reports. The International Trade Commission imposed duties and penalties on Chinese extrusion imports beginning in May 2011.

“Since the tariff orders went into effect, China continues to export their overproduction of aluminum extrusions throughout the world,” said AEC President Jeff Henderson. “Although the tariffs have helped the domestic extrusion industry recover, we will continue to fight for a fair and level playing field as long as China continues their non-market economy practices.”

Through the tariff actions, AEC estimates that 600 million lbs. per year of extrusions are being produced in the U.S. that would have otherwise been lost to China.

China is not the target of antidumping investigations worldwide because of its non-market economy status. It is because of the exportation of massive overproduction and continuing international price discrimination that Chinese industries are the main subject of antidumping actions, reports AEC.