Vietnam customs seizes Chinese aluminium being transshipped to the US through Vietnam

According to a press release from Aluminum Extruders Council, Vietnam has started its action against Chinese transhipment of aluminium. It has been reported that “Vietnamese customs discovered and seized about $4.3 billion of Chinese aluminium falsely labelled “Made-in-Vietnam” before being shipped mostly to the U.S.”

According to the report Vietnamese authorities have been cracking down on Chinese efforts to circumvent U.S. trade orders by transhipping their aluminium via Vietnam. The seize was a result of such effort. A few weeks ago the Vietnamese government levied duties on a wide range of aluminium products from China. The Ministry of Industry and Trade (MoIT) decided to officially impose the highest rate of anti-dumping duties on aluminium products from 16 Chinese producers. The prices of Chinese products were much lower than the production cost of the products in Vietnam affecting their domestic industry.

“The AEC applauds the actions taken by the Vietnamese government against another blatant attempt by the Chinese to break U.S. trade laws as reported today,” said Jeff Henderson, AEC President.

In the beginning of 2019, the Aluminum Extruders Council (AEC) won its circumvention case against Vietnam. The U.S. alleged that Vietnam was boosting their domestic aluminium billet production from illegally imported aluminium from China.  Consequently, they requested for levying antidumping (AD) and countervailing duty (CVD) on Vietnamese extrusions produced from billet containing Chinese-produced aluminium extrusion scrap. They AD/CVD duties on those Vietnamese extrusions would be same as on aluminium extrusions from China.

The AEC has been working towards creating a level playing field for the U.S. aluminium extrusion industry by winning tariff protection that offsets unfair trade practices of extruders/importers of aluminium profiles from China.