The Aluminum Association applauded a move by the U.S. International Trade Commission (USITC) last week to unanimously determine that some aluminium foil imports from Armenia, Brazil, Oman, Russia, and Turkey are injurious to American producers of the same.
The USITC’s decision opens the door for the Department of Commerce to continue with antidumping and countervailing duty investigations on these imports. At present the countervailing duty investigation into aluminium foil imports from Oman and Turkey is due to be completed in late December, while the antidumping investigation into imports from all five of the above-named countries is expected to be completed by early March.
Tom Dobbins, President & CEO of the Aluminum Association, lauded the USITC for its decision in a press release on Thursday.
“The Aluminum Association and its members are encouraged by today’s unanimous preliminary finding. After successfully petitioning for unfair trade orders on imported aluminum foil from China in 2018, U.S. foil producers were unfortunately confronted by a second surge of unfairly-traded imports from these countries. Today’s decision is the first step in restoring fair conditions to the U.S. foil market.”
John Herrmann, of Kelley Drye & Warren LLP and counsel to the Aluminum Association, noted the importance of the USITC’s move last week.
“Today’s affirmative preliminary decision by the ITC is an important first step in remedying the devastating injury that the flood of unfairly-traded imports of certain aluminum foil from the subject countries have had on domestic producers.”
According to the Aluminum Association, imports of aluminium foil of a thickness of 0.2mm or less in rolls of over 25 lbs. rose by almost 110 percent between 2017 and last year and accounted for over 43 percent of all aluminium imports into the United States in 2019. Altogether, the total value of this variety of aluminium foil imports from the five countries in question last year was US$281.4 million.