The Aluminum Association Supports EU Effort to Stop Unfair Trade of Chinese Flat-Rolled Aluminum

The Aluminum Association released the following statement by Tom Dobbins, president & CEO, in response to the European Commission launching an antidumping investigation into certain flat-rolled aluminum products from China. This follows the European Commission’s initiation of a similar case earlier this year investigating the possible dumping of aluminum extrusions. 
 
“Opening this case sends another important signal to China that the rules-based global trading world takes enforcement seriously and will no longer tolerate an industrial policy that drives massive aluminum overcapacity and unfair dumping. China’s well-documented pattern of providing enormous financial subsidies to its aluminum producers distorts markets and harms companies – at home and abroad – that play by the rules. The U.S. should consider working with partners in the EU and elsewhere – including other governments that may be considering similar investigations – to tell China enough is enough.”
 
The Aluminum Association has supported two successful antidumping and countervailing duty cases against unfairly traded aluminum foil and common alloy sheet from China in recent years. Previously, the industry was successful in pursuing antidumping measures on Chinese aluminum extrusions unfairly dumped in the United States.
 
The Chinese government continues to pursue industrial policies to expand its already massive aluminum overcapacity. Over the past five years, aluminum overcapacity in China has grown by 60 percent and increasingly that metal is being exported to third party countries, further distorting global markets. In fact, according to recent figures from the National Bureau of Statistics (NBS), smelters in China produced 3.02 Mt of primary aluminum, the highest ever June amount. Total output is up 1.7 percent year-to-date. Despite this, Chinese producers brought some 680,000 tons/year of new aluminum production capacity on line in the first six months of 2020, according to researcher Antaike. That new capacity alone is equivalent to nearly 40 percent of total U.S. aluminum smelting capacity.

A study last year by the Organisation for Economic Cooperation and Development (OECD), which was noted in the EU’s filing, documented $60 – $70 billion in direct government subsidies to five aluminum-producing firms in China. Over the past five years, aluminum overcapacity in China has grown by 60 percent.