Chinese Aluminum

After several years, the U.S. has finally decided to crack down on aluminum subsidies by China.  China has been selling aluminum and raw steel at subsidized prices for years, playing all kinds of games to pretend it is not selling the goods directly to the US.  You will remember the 2016 hoopla surrounding the discovery of large quantities of aluminum staged in Mexico.  That was done by China  Zhongwang Holdings Ltd. and was said to be 6% of the world’s total inventory - sent to avoid tariffs imposed by the U.S.  Transshipping has been around for a long time, but rarely on that scale.  It was an in-your-face kind of deal that must have been forgiven by the Obama Administration.

Surprisingly, the Chinese press states the case for this issue very much the same as the world’s press.  Although they cite it in the context of avoiding a “trade war” the substance of the presentation is much the same.  They must know that is not just a simple case of a few metric tons being offloaded to another country to make a few $ on a single transaction.  This was wholesale manipulation on a large scale, and more than Mexico was involved.