A senior member of Donald Trump’s cabinet has accused of dumping cheap aluminium on the United States as justification for its 25 per cent import tariffs.
While the US has a trade surplus with , US Commerce Secretary Howard Lutnick has accused of flooding the United States with cheap aluminium in a bid to undercut American manufacturers.
‘Look, you’ve got dumpers in the rest of the world,’ he told Fox Business.
‘Japan dumps steel. China dumps steel. What that means is, they make it, they overproduce and they sell it dirt cheap, to drive our guys out of business.
‘The President is here to protect American workers. He’s here to protect American industry. We’re going to stop that nonsense and bring steel here.
‘So, this concept that, oh, prices are going to rise … you’ve got to remember, President Trump is playing for the strength of America.
‘We’re not going to stand for China, dumping, Japan dumping, or does a lot of aluminum below cost.
‘This has got to end and the President is on it.’
World Trade Organisation rules only allow tariffs under limited circumstances, including to stop dumping, where one country floods another with cheap imports, sold at below cost price.
Dr Naoise McDonagh, a geopolitics and international trade expert at Edith Cowan University in Perth, said Mr Lutnick’s assertions about n aluminium exports had no basis in fact.
‘Lutnick’s comment that there’s been dumping has been unsubstantiated by any evidence,’ he told Daily Mail .
A dumping complaint with the WTO requires an American company unfairly affected to make a complaint to the US government first, which has not even occurred.
‘Typically, if you wanted to make an anti-dumping action, which is allowed under WTO law, you would have to do an investigation and provide evidence that would say an n producer of aluminium is selling that product into the US market at a lower price than it sells in its home n market,’ Dr McDonagh said.
‘There hasn’t been any reports of evidence of that – there hasn’t even been discussion of an investigation.
‘This sounds like statement rather than fact – they’ve just made a broad-based dumping claim, which is so far unsubstantiated.’
The n government doesn’t subsidise Tomago Aluminium in Newcastle to product the lightweight metal cheaply to enable it to sell aluminium in the United States below cost price.
‘This sounds like, to me, this is what we’re getting from the Trump Administration, daily, is off-the-cuff remarks that have no basis in reality,’ Dr McDonagh said.
‘That’s how the boss is doing it, the President, and that’s how now his acolytes and his cabinet seem to be doing it, they’re just making off-the-cuff claims and accusations and they’re not backing it up with any basis or evidence.’
President Trump last month claimed American aluminium imports from were much higher compared with his first term in the White House.
‘The volume of US imports of primary aluminum from has also surged,’ he said in a proclamation attached to the executive tariff order.
‘In 2024 [it] was approximately 103 percent higher than the average volume for 2015 through 2017.
‘ has disregarded its verbal commitment to voluntarily restrain its aluminum exports to a reasonable level.’
Aluminium made up just 1.6 per cent of ‘s exports to the United States in 2024, in a trade worth $400million.
The 25 per cent tariff on steel and aluminium came into force on Wednesday, with getting no exemption unlike 2018.
The tariff was imposed despite the US trade surplus with dating back to 1952, where buys more goods from the US than they buy from us.
n steelmaker BlueScope will escape the tariff as it already manufactures steel in Ohio.
Dr Patricia Ranald, a public policy expert with the University of Sydney’s School of Social and Political Sciences, said could go to the World Trade Organisation to appeal the 25 per cent tariffs on n steel and aluminium.
But she said the dispute resolution would only allow to reciprocate with equivalent tariffs if the WTO found the US was in the wrong.
‘They breach the rules because the US has made an agreement not to raise tariffs in the context of its WTO agreements,’ she told Daily Mail .
‘If you take a dispute and it’s a valid dispute, then the country that imposed the tariffs, if they lose the dispute, then the other country has the right to put tariffs of equivalent value on to them.’
The tariffs also breach the -United States Free Trade Agreement that came into force in 2005.
‘Both the WTO agreements and the US- FTA are legally binding,’ Dr Ranald said.
Dr McDonagh said the Trump Administration was engaging in economic coercion, similar to what China did in 2020 and 2021 to as punishment for demanding an inquiry into the origins of Covid.
Like the US in 2025, China flouted WTO rules and a bilateral, free trade deal with .
‘There is absolutely clear parallels – it’s best described as a type of economic coercion,’ he said.
‘The President of America, what he’s doing is a might makes right approach to trade which is pretty much what China was doing.
‘Its using its massive economy saying, “We’re the biggest economy in the world, we can therefore pressure everyone else because they need access to our economy”.’