A military junta claimed to have seized control in the West African country of Guinea and detained President Alpha Conde, casting uncertainty over key bauxite and iron ore supplies.
The coup, carried out on Sunday by an elite special forces unit led by 41-year-old Col. Mamady Doumbouya, is the latest in a series of power grabs in the region over the past year, including in nearby Mali and Chad.
In an interview with Bloomberg last week, Sec. of Commerce Gina Raimondo said that U.S. steel and aluminum tariffs had done the trick. Folks were back to work, and producers had increased output.
What about the threat that Europe will increase its retaliation by year’s end if the Biden administration doesn’t end the tariffs? Raimondo said the U.S. is willing to deal but that “to simply say ‘no tariffs’ is not the solution.” Actually, it is.
Raimondo’s statement is the stuff of negotiations. After all, the U.S. isn’t going to start its talks with the European Union (EU) by unilaterally disarming.
New projects coming online in key producers Guinea, Indonesia and Australia as well as a ramp-up in Indian and Indonesian production will drive bauxite production growth in 2021 after the covid-19 pandemic in 2020, Fitch Solutions predicts in its latest industry report.
Australia’s bauxite sector will maintain steady output growth, supported by a solid project pipeline. Australia holds 12 of the 32 new bauxite projects in Fitch’s Key Mines Projects Database, more than any other country.
Rio Tinto’s expansion at the Amrun project will drive bauxite production in the country over the coming years, Fitch says. The Amrun project achieved first production in December 2018 and ramped up operations to the full production rate of 22.8mn tonnes per annum (mtpa) in April 2019.
Anthony Caputo’s order book at Can Art Aluminum Extrusion LP is a directory of the world’s most important automobile companies, all of them investing in EVs.
Automotive supply chains are being overhauled to build electric vehicles, and his Brampton, Ont.-based company will be an important node when they solidify since it has emerged as a leading supplier of one of the most important parts: the aluminum cases that protect the batteries, a tricky bit of engineering.
The cases must be both lightweight to help maximize the distance vehicles can travel between charges, and durable enough to keep the battery from exploding in a collision.
A new report by Wood Mackenzie analyzes the challenges and opportunities that the future presents for aluminum, as the buildout of low-carbon energy supply and transmission will consume vast quantities of primary aluminum and associated alumina and bauxite.
Although such a forecast seems to be rosy, the market analyst says that the metal’s role in the green economy may be dampened by the fact that the industry will have to secure low-carbon power, which itself requires the use of low-carbon aluminium, among other metals.
“On a global basis, power accounted for close to 60% of greenhouse gas emissions relating to aluminum production in 2020,” the report reads, pointing out that the primary aluminum industry accounted for around 2.6% of global GHG emissions in 2020, of which 70% came from China.
(Bloomberg) — It’s been a tumultuous four years for U.S. commodity industries that found themselves a key focus of the White House through its aggressive trade policy agenda.
From steel and aluminum tariffs to grain subsidies to boosting exports of liquefied natural gas, very few corners of the global commodities market eluded Donald Trump’s attention.
There was at least one memo, executive order, pronouncement or tweet bringing some sort of attention to uranium, soybeans, and rare earths, the kinds of materials that haven’t received attention from American presidents in years.
Ohio’s craft brewers are preparing for an aluminum shortage as more and more beer makers put their concoctions in cans.
The shortage is likely to hit the state’s smallest breweries especially hard because they have fewer resources and less leverage with metal suppliers, industry insiders said.
At the beginning of 2020, breweries sold much of their beer to restaurants and bars, which meant filling kegs for draught beer. Then came the coronavirus pandemic, which confined many Ohioans to their homes and continues to weigh on the hospitality industry.
John Sleeman was looking for cans of Sleeman Cream Ale at a store, but couldn’t find them. “There were no cans,” the founder of Canada’s third-largest brewery said.
Instead, he settled for bottles, because Sleeman Breweries Ltd. and other Canadian beer brewers are struggling to get enough cans to meet their needs in the midst of a months-long can shortage in North America.
The can shortage means consumers’ preferred brand of beer — or pop, for that matter — might not always be available in the kind of package they want it in. But brewers this week said that, in most cases, they aren’t actually running out of packages to put their liquid in, just the most popular package.
https://www.theglobeandmail.com/
The situation was rife with potential conflict. In the throes of a U.S. election campaign, Canada was preparing to announce major retaliation against President Donald Trump’s administration for the levies it proposed last month against Canadian aluminum imports.
The countermeasures could have affected votes in battleground states, and the likelihood was that Mr. Trump would strike back, escalating tensions as he fought for his political livelihood and drawing Canada into election hostilities.
But unless Deputy Prime Minister Chrystia Freeland is out-and-out lying, the bully has backed off, having run away with its tail between its legs. Just a couple of hours before Ottawa’s retaliatory tariffs were to be imposed, Mr. Trump withdrew his aluminum levies, thus ending the dispute.
https://www.theglobeandmail.com/
The U.S. government has removed tariffs on Canadian aluminum first announced in August but also warned it will reimpose them if shipments to the United States exceed quotas in the months ahead.
The reversal was announced just two hours before Canada was set to unveil $3.6-billion in retaliatory measures on U.S. imports on Tuesday.
Canada and the United States have been locked in a battle over the tariffs for months with the U.S. pushing for an agreement on tariffs triggered when shipments exceed certain volumes. The result of this dispute is the U.S. has unilaterally imposed its own tariff-rate quota on Canadian aluminum.
https://www.theglobeandmail.com/
Canada this week will unveil the retaliatory measures it’s taking against the United States after President Donald Trump slapped tariffs on Canadian aluminum in August.
An announcement could come as soon as Tuesday, or as late as Wednesday, a government source said. The Globe granted anonymity because the source is not authorized to speak publicly about the matter.
Deputy Prime Minister Chrystia Freeland last month said the measures would amount to $3.6-billion and would go into effect on Sept. 16. They will be tariffs on U.S. imports, many of which contain aluminum.
Deputy Prime Minister Chrystia Freeland is preparing to enact a sweeping set of retaliatory tariffs later this week on U.S. aluminum products, according to several sources familiar with the situation.
U.S. President Donald Trump announced last month that he was re-imposing 10 per cent tariffs on Canadian primary aluminum, effective Aug. 16, saying surging volumes were a threat to national security after having lifted his original tariff in 2019.
Freeland promised to retaliate after a 30-day consultation period, and now, sources inside and outside the government, say Canada plans to impose 10 per cent tariffs on about $3.5 billion worth of U.S. aluminum and aluminum-containing products, effective Wednesday.
New data released on Thursday confirms that Canadian exports of primary aluminum to the U.S. had been declining for months when U.S. President Donald Trump announced in August he would reimpose 10 per cent tariffs.
The data undermines the factual basis for Trump’s tariffs, which he said were necessary because Canadian producers had flooded the U.S. market with aluminum, hurting the U.S. sector.
But on Thursday, the Washington International Trade Association hosted a panel discussion on the topic, in which opponents of the tariffs suggested that metal traders had exploited the economic fallout from the coronavirus.
https://www.thesudburystar.com/
Marc Serre is the Liberal MP for Nickel Belt.
Right now, we see countries around the globe collaborating to mitigate the impacts of COVID-19.
In a time where we should be leaning on one another to start the economic recovery of our regions safely and gradually, it is disappointing to see the U.S. implement unjustified tariffs on Canadian aluminum once again.
This will directly impact more than 10,000 workers on the manufacturing side and countless more in secondary related industries. The protection of lives and communities should be the top priority for both countries, instead of waging a trade dispute.
https://www.theglobeandmail.com/
A new opinion survey suggests U.S. President Donald Trump’s recent decision to slap a tariff on Canadian raw aluminum is garnering poor reviews on both sides of the border.
In a web survey conducted by polling firm Leger and the Association for Canadian Studies, 58 per cent of American respondents said they disagreed with the 10-per-cent import tax.
In what comes as less of a surprise, 90 per cent of Canadians who took part in the survey objected to the White House’s tariff.
