The United States on Friday imposed stiff new tariffs on nearly $2 billion in aluminium from 18 countries.

The Commerce Department has accused these countries, including Germany, Spain and Brazil, of dumping aluminium into the American market,

Commerce Secretary Wilbur Ross said China was not on the list but still hold’s the country partially responsible for the flood of aluminium sheet imports that could undermine domestic producers.

He said, “What’s really been happening, actually, is Chinese excess capacity has been dumped into other markets. That, in turn, displaces production which gets dumped here.

“It’s a very complicated setup but the net effect is a lot of dumping in the US, and that’s what we’re clamping down on.”

Brazil and Germany face the steepest tariffs of close to 137 per cent and 353 per cent, respectively. The US imported nearly $287 million of the product from Germany last year, and $97 million from Brazil.

According to a Commerce Department statement, this decision means the US will immediately begin collecting the tariffs from importers to compensate for the price of aluminium sheeting sold below the cost of production, or helped by unfair subsidies.

The department could overturn the decision in late February, which is also subject to review by the US International Trade Commission. Their final decision is scheduled for April 5, 2021.