American Companies Still Make Aluminum. In Iceland.<br />Alcoa, formerly the Aluminum Company of America, and another American company, Century Aluminum, have opened factories like this in Iceland,<br />and closed factories in the United States, for a simple reason: Electricity is much cheaper here.<br />“You’ve got to have jobs to buy stuff.”<br />The industry has found a sympathetic audience in Mr. Trump, who has described the<br />decline of domestic smelting as a “disaster” caused by “unfair foreign trade.”<br />But the aluminum industry does not want to bring back the jobs<br />that have moved to Canada and Iceland and other countries where American companies now have operations.<br />Only 10 percent of American aluminum imports last year came from China, but the industry argues<br />that everyone is forced to compete against the Chinese prices — and Western companies are struggling to turn a profit.<br />Electricity in Iceland costs about 30 percent less than what Alcoa might pay in the United States.
