Aluminum Interests Send Dueling Letters on Section 232 Country Exemptions

The Aluminum Association, the largest trade group for the aluminum industry, asked President Donald Trump to grant permanent exemptions to the European Union, Canada, Mexico, Brazil, Australia and Argentina -- and said those agreements should not be used to create quotas for aluminum exports. The trade group sent a letter on April 24 noting that 97 percent of aluminum industry jobs are in mid- and downstream production, and most rely on at least some imported aluminum. "Quotas would paradoxically cause imports of semi-fabricated products from China to be more competitive in the U.S. market, as manufacturers scramble to find metal," the letter said.

The Aluminum Extruders Council said in a news release that it agrees with the Aluminum Association and that it "calls on the Administration to empower this industry by ensuring its access to the very raw materials the aluminum industry needs to support a very vibrant and growing supply chain in the manufacturing base." The Commerce Department "must not jeopardize these American jobs by further restraining access to primary aluminum by imposing quotas," the AEC said. Russian sanctions have already hurt the supply chain and "any additional restraint of imported aluminum into the U.S. aluminum supply chain will lead to work stoppages at extrusion plants and their customers," the AEC said. "Extrusion buyers will be forced to source parts from foreign suppliers as an alternative source to maintain production. In this case, the country most likely to supply these parts will be China."

On April 18, a United Steelworkers official, the CEO of Century Aluminum and the CEO of Magnitude 7 Metals sent a letter to the commerce secretary and the U.S. trade representative saying that tariffs on some players while allowing those with temporary exemptions to get permanent exemptions would not be enough to sustain re-opened aluminum smelters. The letter warned that thousands of jobs "may vanish as quickly as they began" if allies do not face either tariffs or quotas.