Aluminum Association Questions Section 232 Exclusion Decisions
The changes to the Section 232 aluminum exclusion process described in an interim final rule from the Commerce Department have not yet improved the process, The Aluminum Association said in its comments submitted Nov. 13 on that interim final rule. Decisions have only been made on about 20 percent of the published exclusion requests, and there are still requests published six months ago that haven't gotten an answer. "While the number of requests, objections, rebuttals and sur-rebuttals in the aluminum docket are far lower than the steel docket, the requests -- as well as objections and rebuttals -- are still difficult to monitor" because there's no adequate tracking system. Users can't search on HTS code, country of origin or the type of alloys -- they have to open every single file, the trade group noted.
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Some of the granted exclusions seem at odds with the trade remedies, the association said. "In our analysis, [the Bureau of Industry and Security] has granted more than 360 Section 232 exclusions for aluminum products covered by the scope of the common alloy aluminum sheet AD/CVD case (HTS 7606.12.3090) -- 306 of which include products from China," the association wrote. "The exclusions already granted account for a substantial share of U.S. market for common alloy products, and exceed recent trends for imports of flat rolled products." They said BIS has accepted exclusion requests that have massive volumes, and they urged the department to more carefully look at the scope of the request compared to the size of the domestic market, even if there is no objection to the request. They suggested that some producers may not object to a request, because they do not have the capacity to fulfill the full amount of the order.
The association noted once more that it opposes worldwide tariffs on aluminum, and it would prefer a monitoring system on aluminum imports from countries that could be circumventing Chinese antidumping duties, such as Vietnam, Indonesia, Malaysia and Thailand.