Attention, Candidates: China Is Trying to Foil Aluminum.....

[MMC]

Some more validation of BO peep being a failure. While pointing out that Hillary and Bernie don't even have a clue as to how they will deal with China. Trump isn't much better. But his answers are better than anything Hillary or the Sandman has said.



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 (http://abcnews.go.com/Politics/donald-trump-calls-chinas-trade-practices-greatest-theft/story?id=38812125) last month. “It’s the greatest theft in the history of the world.”

Specifics, however, are few. In a policy statement (https://www.donaldjtrump.com/positions/us-china-trade-reform) on his website, Trump says he will narrow the trade deficit with China through “leadership and strength at the negotiating table.” Bernie Sanders (http://feelthebern.org/bernie-sanders-on-china/#trade-policy) and Hillary Clinton (http://www.ontheissues.org/2016/Hillary_Clinton_Free_Trade.htm) 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.

It’s no surprise, then, that demand for aluminum (http://www.aluminum.org/china-trade) is up 36 percent since 2009, according to the industry’s trade group. That’s the good news. The bad news is that domestic production is plummeting. In February, the most recent month for statistics, the U.S. produced 37 percent less primary aluminum (http://www.aluminum.org/sites/default/files/USPrimaryProduction022016R.pdf) than it did a year earlier. It looks like 2016 will be the third straight year of decline.

In the current political environment, China is playing a dangerous game. It should end its subsidies and shut unproductive plants, bringing global aluminum production and prices to a natural equilibrium. Even with just eight months left in its tenure, the administration cannot idly preside over the obliteration of an American industry that’s flourished for more than a century......snip~

http://www.realclearpolitics.com/articles/2016/06/17/attention_candidates_china_is_trying_to_foil_alumi num_130904.html

[Common Sense]

Demand is up because of all those hats you guys wear.

[MMC]

Demand is up because of all those hats you guys wear.

But production is down more of those BO peep regulations, huh?



Eight U.S.-based smelters have either closed or were curtailed since 2015, including the nation’s largest (http://www.businessinsider.com/r-alcoa-plans-to-close-largest-us-aluminum-smelter-amid-tumbling-prices-2016-1), an Alcoa plant in Warwick, Ind. Fifteen years ago, there were 23 aluminum smelters (http://www.voanews.com/content/historic-aluminum-smelting-industry-in-rapid-decline-in-us/3201868.html) in the U.S.; now just two companies operate five smelters, the lowest level of production since World War II. In just the past three years, jobs in the primary production of aluminum (that is, aluminum not converted from old scrap) and refining in this country have declined by more than half.
So demand is up, but production is down. What gives? .....snip~ Same link.

[Common Sense]

But production is down more of those BO peep regulations, huh?



Eight U.S.-based smelters have either closed or were curtailed since 2015, including the nation’s largest (http://www.businessinsider.com/r-alcoa-plans-to-close-largest-us-aluminum-smelter-amid-tumbling-prices-2016-1), an Alcoa plant in Warwick, Ind. Fifteen years ago, there were 23 aluminum smelters (http://www.voanews.com/content/historic-aluminum-smelting-industry-in-rapid-decline-in-us/3201868.html) in the U.S.; now just two companies operate five smelters, the lowest level of production since World War II. In just the past three years, jobs in the primary production of aluminum (that is, aluminum not converted from old scrap) and refining in this country have declined by more than half.
So demand is up, but production is down. What gives? .....snip~ Same link.

Your article doesn't talk about regulations nor does even mention Obama. It mentions cheap overseas competition as the reason plants are closing.

[Common]

China screws us in so many ways and Trump is the only one who even talks about it.
Hillary lubs her chinese donors



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 (http://abcnews.go.com/Politics/donald-trump-calls-chinas-trade-practices-greatest-theft/story?id=38812125) last month. “It’s the greatest theft in the history of the world.”

Specifics, however, are few. In a policy statement (https://www.donaldjtrump.com/positions/us-china-trade-reform) on his website, Trump says he will narrow the trade deficit with China through “leadership and strength at the negotiating table.” Bernie Sanders (http://feelthebern.org/bernie-sanders-on-china/#trade-policy) and Hillary Clinton (http://www.ontheissues.org/2016/Hillary_Clinton_Free_Trade.htm) 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.
The lightweight metal, used in transportation, packaging, and construction, is in vogue. To boost fuel economy, the new Cadillac CT6 (http://www.freep.com/story/money/cars/mark-phelan/2016/01/26/first-drive-cadillac-ct6-challenges-luxury-leaders/79280628/) uses aluminum for its structural parts and comes in 400 pounds lighter than its competitors. Ford’s aluminum-intensive version of its F-150 pickup, the most popular vehicle (http://www.businessinsider.com/history-of-the-ford-f-series-2016-1) in America, trims 700 pounds. Because it’s easy to recycle, aluminum helps buildings qualify for green certification (http://www.reuters.com/article/us-metals-aluminium-iai-interview-idUSTRE72T4V420110330).
It’s no surprise, then, that demand for aluminum (http://www.aluminum.org/china-trade) is up 36 percent since 2009, according to the industry’s trade group. That’s the good news. The bad news is that domestic production is plummeting. In February, the most recent month for statistics, the U.S. produced 37 percent less primary aluminum (http://www.aluminum.org/sites/default/files/USPrimaryProduction022016R.pdf) than it did a year earlier. It looks like 2016 will be the third straight year of decline.

Eight U.S.-based smelters have either closed or were curtailed since 2015, including the nation’s largest (http://www.businessinsider.com/r-alcoa-plans-to-close-largest-us-aluminum-smelter-amid-tumbling-prices-2016-1), an Alcoa plant in Warwick, Ind. Fifteen years ago, there were 23 aluminum smelters (http://www.voanews.com/content/historic-aluminum-smelting-industry-in-rapid-decline-in-us/3201868.html) in the U.S.; now just two companies operate five smelters, the lowest level of production since World War II. In just the past three years, jobs in the primary production of aluminum (that is, aluminum not converted from old scrap) and refining in this country have declined by more than half.


So demand is up, but production is down. What gives?
China. I’ve been dismayed at the isolationist rhetoric of the candidates, but even as a hard-core believer in open borders, I’m appalled at what’s been happening with aluminum.
China’s own economy slowed last year (http://www.wsj.com/articles/china-economic-growth-slows-to-6-9-on-year-in-2015-1453169398) to its most anemic growth rate in a quarter-century, and 2016 and 2017 are projected to be worse (http://www.economist.com/news/economic-and-financial-indicators/21699128-output-prices-and-jobs). But China’s communist regime has propped up its aluminum industry with subsidies, desperate to avoid throwing thousands out of work (http://qz.com/61798/why-china-just-cant-quit-producing-aluminum-despite-a-global-glut/) and creating civil unrest. As a result, Chinese aluminum is flooding world markets, driving down prices (http://www.statista.com/statistics/276643/aluminum-prices-since-2003/) from $2,638 a ton in 2007 to $1,600 last week (http://www.indexmundi.com/commodities/?commodity=aluminum) and idling factories in other countries.

Chinese aluminum exports (http://www.wsj.com/articles/aluminum-sector-presses-u-s-over-chinese-exports-1457566118) have quadrupled over the past decade. The country’s smelters
produced (http://www.world-aluminium.org/statistics/primary-aluminium-production/) 2.6 million metric tons of aluminum in April, or 55 percent of what’s made worldwide. Only 640 million tons were produced by the U.S. and Europe combined. And, according to the U.S. Geological Survey (http://minerals.usgs.gov/minerals/pubs/commodity/aluminum/mcs-2016-alumi.pdf), China continues to expand its capacity.
Nearly all of China’s smelters use electricity generated by coal, which is more expensive (and more polluting) than the natural gas and renewable resources, like hydropower, used in other major aluminum-producing regions. The cost of electricity to run aluminum smelters without government assistance is 50 percent higher in China than the average in the rest of the world.

According to U.S. investigators, however, the inefficiency of coal-fired electricity is offset by the Chinese government, which simply “allocates” coal reserves – sometimes in the billions of tons – at little or no cost to feed captive generators that supply power exclusively to favored aluminum projects.
Drawing on corporate records, investigators also point to low-interest loans from state-controlled banks in China. In many cases, the aluminum firms’ shaky financials do not merit new debt at all, but the banks provide it, and, when the Chinese companies can’t meet the payments, the loans are rolled over and new credit is extended.
Consider Aluminum Corp. of China Ltd. (Chalco), the third-largest aluminum company in the country and the subsidiary of a wholly state-owned company. Chalco’s production alone exceeds that of the entire U.S. aluminum industry. Public documents show that since 2008, Chalco’s net operating loss has totaled more than $4 billion, while its debt has climbed to $18 billion. It’s doubtful any private bank would lend to a company like Chalco on favorable terms, if at all, but China’s state-run banks do.


The World Trade Organization prohibits subsidies (https://www.wto.org/english/thewto_e/whatis_e/tif_e/agrm8_e.htm) of the sort that China appears to be employing, and pressure is building for the Obama administration to initiate a WTO action. Last week, China agreed to cut its excess steel output (http://www.usatoday.com/story/money/2016/06/07/treasury-secretary-china-agrees-cut-excess-steel-output/85542044/), but Treasury Secretary Jacob Lew said that China and the U.S. could not “come to common understanding” on aluminum, where China has an even larger global market share and its practices are even more outrageous.
In the current political environment, China is playing a dangerous game. It should end its subsidies and shut unproductive plants, bringing global aluminum production and prices to a natural equilibrium. Even with just eight months left in its tenure, the administration cannot idly preside over the obliteration of an American industry that’s flourished for more than a century.

http://www.realclearpolitics.com/articles/2016/06/17/attention_candidates_china_is_trying_to_foil_alumi num_130904.html

[MMC]

Your article doesn't talk about regulations nor does even mention Obama. It mentions cheap overseas competition as the reason plants are closing.

Eight U.S.-based smelters have either closed or were curtailed since 2015....snip~


Whos that fall on? Maybe if you say sorry for him. He can be excluded.

[Common Sense]

Eight U.S.-based smelters have either closed or were curtailed since 2015....snip~


Whos that fall on? Maybe if you say sorry for him. He can be excluded.

You have Obama derangement syndrome.

[Common Sense]

Meanwhile Trump is the one who is having his products made in China.

This topic was already posted by the way. I guess some people get their talking points alerts earlier than others.

[MMC]

You have Obama derangement syndrome.

And you're nothing more than Obama fan that can't get enough of him. I can get you one of his T shirts for a discount.


Even with just eight months left in its tenure, the administration cannot idly preside over the obliteration of an American industry that’s flourished for more than a century.....snip~

Reading is fun and mental.....even if you lack the mental part. Just sayin.

[MMC]

:wink:http://thepoliticalforums.com/threads/64988-Attention-Candidates-China-Is-Trying-to-Foil-Aluminum

[Peter1469]

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