Attention, Candidates: China Is Trying to Foil Aluminum

Candidates of both parties have been blasting the Chinese for unfair trade practices.

Candidates of both parties have been blasting the Chinese for unfair trade practices. “We can’t continue to allow China to rape our country, and that’s what they’re doing,” said Donald Trump last month. “It’s the greatest theft in the history of the world.”

Specifics, however, are few. In a policy statement on his website, Trump says he will narrow the trade deficit with China through “leadership and strength at the negotiating table.” Bernie Sanders and Hillary Clinton have been even more vague about what China is doing wrong and what they will do to stop it.
So here’s a one-word suggestion for the rest of the campaign season: aluminum…

A fight worth having with China

OF ALL the threats facing the global economy, none has more destabilizing potential than China’s decelerating growth rate.

OF ALL the threats facing the global economy, none has more destabilizing potential than China’s decelerating growth rate. After years of booming by exporting and investing, the People’s Republic has begun accumulating debt and excess industrial capacity; yet the Communist leadership in Beijing seems unwilling or unable to make the necessary transition to greater reliance on services and domestic consumption. China’s bloated state-run industries, especially steel and aluminum, are desperately trying to raise cash by flooding the United States and Europe with cheap products, a global fire sale that threatens jobs in those countries, triggers retaliatory measures — and adds to geopolitical tensions already high over the maritime boundary dispute in the South China Sea.

The United States and China this month concluded their annual “strategic and economic dialogue” in Beijing, and Treasury Secretary Jack Lew took the occasion to warn his hosts in terms that were relatively blunt, by the standards of such confabs. “Excess capacity has a distorting and damaging effect on global markets,” he said, and “implementing policies to substantially reduce production in a range of sectors suffering from overcapacity, including steel and aluminum, is critical to the function and stability of international markets.” In response, China pledged “to undertake further steps,” even as senior officials protested that they shouldn’t be blamed for overcapacity because it resulted from China’s stimulus spending during the global financial panic in 2008 — for which it was praised by the United States and Europe…

U.S. Push on China Factories Seen as Prelude to Trade Clash

China’s pledge to reduce overcapacity in its steel industry has eased tension with the U.S. but probably won’t be enough to head off a trade clash between the world’s two biggest economies over whether the Chinese have truly embraced market forces.

China’s pledge to reduce overcapacity in its steel industry has eased tension with the U.S. but probably won’t be enough to head off a trade clash between the world’s two biggest economies over whether the Chinese have truly embraced market forces.

Treasury Secretary Jacob J. Lew has been pressing China in recent months on the issue of its excess capacity, arguing in the past week that it has distorted global markets for steel and aluminum and may have a “corrosive” effect on the country’s growth. Lew’s arguments echo those made by U.S. steel and aluminum makers, who say state-supported Chinese producers are feeding a global glut of the commodities…

U.S. chides China on steel glut, treatment of foreign companies at annual talks

BEIJING — Treasury Secretary Jack Lew chided China on Monday for allowing a glut of steel and aluminum to flood global markets, and urged Beijing to treat foreign companies with the same openness that Chinese firms often receive across the world.

The annual U.S.-China Strategic and Economic Dialogue is usually an occasion when the two sides try to highlight areas of cooperation and progress. But this year’s event in Beijing is overshadowed by growing trade and commercial friction, as well as continued sparring over China’s efforts to exert greater control over the South China Sea…

Sen. Mary Landrieu: It’s time to confront China’s cheating on trade

Anyone still perplexed by the rise of Donald Trump need only take a 50 minute drive from here to the town of Gramercy, where the 444 men and women who work at Noranda’s alumina refinery are at risk of losing their jobs because China is cheating the rules of global trade.

Since opening in 2004, this refinery has helped feed the exponential growth in demand for the aluminum used to build pickup trucks, fighter jets, and body armor for our troops.

Today, American industry’s appetite for aluminum is higher than it has ever been. And yet, these workers are facing devastating layoffs because the Chinese government is illegally subsidizing aluminum production…