Trading conflicts, especially on aluminum alloys, between China and America keep catching attention of the whole world. Convinced that rise of China aluminum industry has been the root for depression of American aluminum industry, the Trump administration first took a series of measures against importing of aluminum foil from China, which marked the beginning of trading conflicts. China exportation of aluminum alloy to America did contribute to depression of the latter. If we check developing history of America aluminum industry, however, we will find that falling of the industry itself, serves as key factor for the problem.
As a leader in global aluminum alloy industry, America used to be pioneer of electrolytic aluminum. In the 1880s Charles Martin Hall find out aluminum manufacturing method of low cost, and founded a company two years later, which was predecessor of current America aluminum company. Twelve years later the country boasted annual productivity of 2296 metric tons in electrolytic aluminum, taking up one third of global market. Twenty years later, it dealt with half of the aluminum demand in the world, becoming the only leader of the industry. In the following fifty years America aluminum alloy industry kept making new records until the 1980s when it came into an extremely unstable period. After ups and downs the industry could only keep its annual productivity around 2,6million metric tons from 2001 to 2008. Years later many factories closed in economic crisis and to 2017 there were only two companies and five factories left in the whole country, among which three factories could not operate normally. The annual productivity dropped to only 740 thousand metric tons, falling behind of many small countries.
In contrast, global demand for aluminum alloy has kept rising in the last four decades. Even America needs 5.5 million metric tons every year, which is obviously far more than its productivity. What’s more, closing down of factories resulted in high unemployment rate. Figures show that 76.3 thousand people in America aluminum alloy industry lost jobs in 1999, 60 thousand in 2003, 55 thousand in 2008, 30.5 thousand in 2013, 31.9 thousand in 2016 and 28 thousand in 2017. In other words, 63.3% aluminum workers lost jobs only in the last twenty years. From the developing history we can see America aluminum alloy industry has been depressing continuously in the past decades.