Apex Aluminum Extrusions churns out aluminum products used to build a variety of finished products. “Pretty much anywhere you can picture aluminum being used, we are producing profiles for our customers,” said Darren McQueen, the head of the Langley-based company. The company has been hammered by tariffs imposed by U.S. President Donald Trump. Initially set at 50 per cent, the tariffs will soon double, the company learned Wednesday. “Starting Sept. 15, the (section) 338 (tariffs) will stack on the (section) 232 (tariffs) and we’ll be subject to a 100 per cent tariff on our selling price,” McQueen said. Because the company relies heavily on the U.S., the escalating trade war is exacting a devastating toll. “Forty-plus percent of our sales were into the U.S., and that will drop to zero,” said McQueen. What’s more, the tariffs levied by the U.S. apply to businesses around the world, also blocking them from exporting extrusions to the U.S. That means competition for customers in Canada just got crowded. “Canada has no barriers, so what were seeing is, this year alone, a 40-per-cent increase of aluminum extrusions coming in from Vietnam, Malaysia, Thailand,” said McQueen. At the same time, Canada hasn’t imposed tariffs on similar U.S.-made aluminum products. McQueen says the company has already laid off 50 per cent of its staff. He refuses to move his operations to the U.S., which is Trump’s goal. He says he desperately needs Ottawa to step in to impose barriers to foreign companies dumping aluminum here. “We will not move to the U.S., but if we did, we could move all 6,500 profiles to somewhere in the U.S., produce the product, satisfy our U.S. customers tariff-free and satisfy our Canadian customers tariff-free,” McQueen noted Thursday.
