Aluminum Industry Group Urges US to Sign Deal With China

The Aluminum Association urged U.S. officials to sign a trade agreement with China and to hold the country accountable for its “unfair trading practices,” the association said in a Feb. 8 letter to U.S. Trade Representative Robert Lighthizer and Treasury Secretary Steven Mnuchin. The letter, signed by CEO Heidi Brock, said the U.S. aluminum industry has suffered from China’s “pervasive subsidies” to its own aluminum industry. In particular, she said, the Chinese government has boosted domestic aluminum production and created overcapacity. Mnuchin and Lighthizer were urged to come to a “government-to-government agreement” with China on that aluminum overcapacity that would give “long-term certainty to the industry.” She said: “These important negotiations could lead to policy changes that result in measurable and verifiable reductions in Chinese aluminum capacity in both the upstream and downstream segments of the value chain.”

The Aluminum Association also sent a letter on the China overcapacity Aug. 17, 2018, as U.S. negotiators were preparing to meet in Washington Aug. 22-23 with a Chinese trade delegation. The Section 232 tariffs on steel and aluminum took effect March 23, 2018.