AD/CVD Petitioners Contest ITC's Negative Injury Finding on Aluminum Extrusions at CIT
The International Trade Commission erred when it found that aluminum extrusion exports from 14 nations didn't injure the U.S. industry, AD/CVD petitioners the U.S. Aluminum Extruders Coalition and the United Steelworkers argued in a Jan. 3 complaint at the Court of International Trade. The seven-count complaint challenged, among other things, the commission's conclusions that the extrusions didn't undersell the domestic like product nor have "significant adverse price effects" (U.S. Aluminum Extruders Coalition v. United States, CIT # 25-00001)
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The proceeding covered extrusions from China, Colombia, Ecuador, India, Indonesia, Italy, Malaysia, Mexico, South Korea, Taiwan, Thailand, Turkey, the United Arab Emirates and Vietnam. Extrusions from all 14 countries were preliminarily found to be dumped, though only goods from China, Indonesia and Mexico were preliminarily found to be subsidized by their foreign governments.
The petitioners said that during the proceeding they requested that the ITC collect "purchase cost data from U.S. importers -- as it has done in many prior cases -- in addition to the traditional quarterly pricing product data" to assess alleged underselling of the subject extrusions. The commission declined to collect the data despite the petitioners' claim that the data is "critically important to the Commission’s investigation of subject import price effects."
During a hearing before the four sitting commissioners, the petitioners argued that there are "numerous flaws in the pricing product data, many of which had gone uncorrected." The petitioners said they cited various pieces of evidence showing adverse price effects and underselling, including reporting from a majority of buyers claiming that the subject imports were lower priced than U.S. extrusions and a purchase cost data analysis compiled by the petitioners, among other things.
The ITC issued a final staff report, which recognized certain errors in the data. The petitioners said that despite these efforts "most of the flaws" remained. In addition, the commission accepted a questionnaire response from an additional importer shortly before the deadline for final comments. The petitioners said this data "had a significant impact on the underselling data." The ITC then revised the final staff report, which the petitioners said shows the "sensitivity of the pricing product data," further demonstrating "the poor coverage and unreliability of the data."
Nevertheless, the ITC found in a 2-1 vote that the subject extrusions were not injuring the U.S. industry, after one commissioner recused herself. The majority found the volume of subject imports to be significant but disagreed with the petitioners that this volume had "significant price effects and a significant adverse impact" on the U.S. industry, the brief said. On price effects, the majority said the imports didn't significantly undersell the U.S. product or depress or suppress prices to a significant degree, finding the pricing product data probative.
The majority added that there's "not a causal nexus between subject imports and declines in the domestic industry's performance during the" investigation period, finding the dip in U.S. output to be due to "domestic industry supply constraints in 2021 and 2022" and a decline in U.S. consumption and boost in non-subject imports' market share.
The petitioners are challenging the majority's findings regarding the imports' alleged underselling and price effects, the cause of the domestic industry's decline in performance and the alleged causal nexus between subject imports and dips in U.S. industry performance.