The United States has made a preliminary determination on tariffs for aluminum foil products from Korea. It judged that these products circumvented U.S. import regulations by re-exporting Chinese products subject to anti-dumping and countervailing duties.
According to the U.S. Federal Register on the 3rd (local time), the Department of Commerce announced on the 22nd of last month that certain aluminum foil imported from Korea and Thailand used aluminum foil and aluminum sheets manufactured in China. The U.S. has imposed anti-dumping and countervailing duties on Chinese aluminum plates and related products since 2018. This measure reconfirms that simply processing Chinese products subject to import regulations and exporting them is not allowed.
The Korean companies involved are six in total: Dongil Aluminum, Lotte Aluminum, Dongwon Systems, Iljin Altech, Korea Aluminum, and Sama Aluminum, while there are three companies in Thailand. The Department of Commerce also instructed these companies to deposit cash in preparation for tariff imposition. This is a precaution in case the Department of Commerce makes a final decision to impose 'circumvention tariffs.' It is reported that the final decision usually takes about one year.
Aluminum foil is used in battery manufacturing and other applications. Among Korean companies, LG Energy Solution is known to have imported some products from these companies.
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