Alcoa asks US gov. for tariff exemption on Canadian aluminum
It was reported that Alcoa imported 40,000 tons of aluminum from Canada in order to meet customers' orders for beverage cans. According to Trump's tariff policy, the US has increased the tariff on imported aluminum by 10%, and 25% for steel. For this reason, Alcoa specifically applied for an exemption on Canadian aluminum. Alcoa submitted a total of five applications, which indicated that they imported aluminum from Canada because they could not find any special material that met the customers’ requirements for making aluminum cans in the US.
Alcoa, the largest US aluminum producer, has three plants in Canada and hired about 3,300 employees. One of Alcoa’s employee said that the company has increased the additional cost of US$14 million per month since the implementation of the steel and aluminum tariffs. Alcoa also expressed that the application for exemption just began, there would be a number of exemption lists to apply to the Ministry of Commerce.
Alcoa's president, Tim Reyes, stated that the US needed to import aluminum goods from Canada to cope with the market due to insufficient stock in the US. Reyes believed that Canada and other allies without unfair trade behaviors should be removed from the list of steel and aluminum taxes from the 232 investigation. Consequently, Alcoa was trying to negotiate with the US regarding the tariffs issues.
