The multibillion dollar aluminum industry helped start a new group Thursday with a coalition of automotive technology companies to press the Trump administration to support consistent clean vehicle standards as an important investment for the economy.
“The U.S. aluminum industry has committed or invested more than $2.6 billion in U.S. manufacturing facilities over the past five years to help support growing demand for aluminum in the auto market,” said Heidi Brock, president of the Aluminum Association, the metal manufacturing industry’s lead trade group.
Brock said the Trump administration needs to support strong fuel efficiency standards for cars and trucks to undergird that investment, since the rules are projected to cause a transition from steel to lighter aluminum use in vehicle chassis to make cars and pickup trucks lighter to meet the standards.
“Continued certainty in the marketplace is vital to ensure that these investments continue which will allow us to support our customers in producing the safest, most fuel-efficient vehicles,” Brock said, representing the Automotive Technology Leadership Group, a new informal alliance between representing automotive suppliers and emission control companies.
“These organizations agree that it is in the nation’s best interests to continue leading the development and manufacture of the cleanest and most efficient vehicles in the world,” the group said.
The Trump Environmental Protection Agency is evaluating whether to move forward with strict new fuel efficiency standards for cars and light trucks for 2022-2025 initiated under the Obama administration. The new industry group wants more engagement among the EPA, Department of Transportation, states such as California, automakers, and all related industries “to ensure clear and predictable standards that allow companies to continue investing with confidence.”
But clean vehicle innovation also could benefit from tariffs on Chinese aluminum imports that the Trump administration recently suggested. Brock’s group fully supports the tariffs that the Commerce Department determined were necessary after the group petitioned for them last year.
“The Aluminum Association and its foil-producing members are extremely pleased with the Commerce Department’s final determinations that aluminum foil from China is being sold unfairly in the United States,” Brock said in a separate statement on Tuesday ahead of the coalition launch.
“U.S. aluminum foil producers are among the most competitive producers in the world, but they cannot compete against products that are sold at unfairly low prices and subsidized by the government of China,” she said.
The Commerce Department this month agreed with the U.S. aluminum industry that China is guilty of violating anti-dumping rules and would face tariffs and other penalties on its imports. The petition that spurred the Commerce Department’s findings marked the first time the Aluminum Association had filed a petition in an unfair trade case on behalf of its members over its nearly 85-year history.
China’s aluminum imports were used specifically in automotive equipment and vehicles, heating and cooling equipment, basic household foil, flexible and semi-rigid cookware, product packaging, and other uses.
President Trump has touted the use of tariffs on steel and aluminum as important to ramping up more manufacturing in the U.S. and increasing jobs. The next step in implementing the tariffs and duties on the imports will come later this month when the International Trade Commission determines whether Chinese imports are the cause of “material injury” to domestic producers. The commission is slated to vote on March 15, according to the group.
Trump also supported imposing similar tariffs on solar panel imports, which are more protectionist and separate from an anti-dumping finding for aluminum and steel that typically requires a higher burden of proof to invoke.
