Local aluminum extrusion manufacturers have gained the support of Ohio senators asking for better protection against foreign companies undercutting their business.

A letter signed by Senator Sherrod Brown and JD Vance to the Biden Administration names a long list of countries that have increased their foreign imports including China, Vietnam and Mexico. The letter claims the availability of imports from these countries caused American producers to lose 11% of their business. 

Aluminum extrusions are found in everyday products from homes to cars to appliances. The product is high in demand but local companies have come together saying they’re seeing less customers because foreign companies are taking their business. 

With the market decline, these companies claim they’ve had to reduce shifts and down size.

“There are a large number of extruders in Ohio,” Robert DeFrancesco, a lawyer for the Wiley Law Group based in Washington D.C said. “I think it’s the first or second largest state for domestic extrusion manufacturing and so they are suffering as a result of the import surge.” 

The Wiley Law Group is representing a coalition - which includes some Mahoning Valley aluminum extrusion manufacturers - in two cases with the Department of Commerce and the International Trade Association. In each case they are asking for the U.S. Government to impose tariffs or extra taxes on aluminum extrusions coming in from other countries to try and get people to buy locally instead. 

They feel without local suppliers the entire country could be at risk.

“In an emergency our ability to supply hospital beds, vital tanks that the US military uses, airplanes, armor applications …  all the things that go into national defense and critical infrastructure … when you need it the most it’s not going to be there,” DeFrancesco said about products made from extruded aluminum. 

Omid Bagheri, an Assistant Professor in the Department of Economics at Kent State University fears that if a tariff is put in place it would start a tariff war. 

“Other countries, of course, they are going to lose a part of their export to the United States and that makes them angry,” Bagheri said. “They can retaliate by adding tariffs on the products of the United States that are being imported to their own countries.” 

“We don’t anticipate a sort of tit for tat. This is not like some of the other tariff proceedings that have happened previously where governments have to follow the prescribed rules in the global trading system through the [World Trade Organization],”  DeFrancesco said. 

Bagheri also believes if a tariff is put into place and companies continue to import aluminum, Americans will end up paying more for everyday products. 

“If you are buying your raw materials at a higher price of course the final cost of production at the end of the day is going to be more expensive,” Bagheri said. 

Bagheri said instead of a tariff, the industry could convince the government to subsidize their products - giving them tax credits or reimbursements to keep them afloat. A second option he suggests is for local companies to be more cost efficient and reduce their workforce to try and compete with the prices countries like China are putting up.

“That looks a sad thing right now, some people will lose their jobs but we have to understand that when an organization is working not at the lowest point of their cost function, meaning that they are not at the most efficiency in the long term they are doomed to be out of business one way or another,” Bagheri said. 

But local companies feel they’ve done all they can to compete with other countries and in the end are still being squeezed by unfair trade.

“When foreign governments put their finger on the scale and distort that trade imbalance, there's no amount of cost cutting that a U.S. producer could do to compete with a foreign government,” DeFrancesco said. 

The coalition petitioning for relief includes Extrudex in North Jackson, Ohio, and Pennex Aluminum in Leetonia, Ohio. The United Steelworkers participated in the petition, and represents three aluminum extrusion facilities in Ohio: American Aluminum Extrusions of Ohio in Canton, General Extrusions, Inc. in Youngstown, and Aerolite LLC in Boardman.

The Director of Sales for General Extrusions said they are “in full support of this effort to protect fairness in our market.”

Results from the two cases with the Department of Commerce and the International Trade Union are expected later this year. If both call for a tariff, the government will set rates for each individual country that imports aluminum extrusion.

The full letter can be read here.