A four-year tariff-rate quota lands on imported quartz countertops on 15 August, at 25 percent inside the quota and 50 percent above it
The measure is a quota with a price attached, not a ban. From 12:01 a.m. on 15 August, imported quartz surface products entering within an annual quantity of 13,006,426 square metres pay 25 percent. Everything above that quantity pays 50 percent.
Proclamation 11051 was signed on 31 July and reached the Federal Register at 11.15 on Tuesday morning, for publication on 5 August. It runs four years.
The rates step down each year rather than up. In the year from 15 August 2027 they become 23 and 49 percent, then 21 and 48, then 19 and 47 in the final year ending 14 August 2030. The quota rises over the same period, from 13,006,426 square metres to 15,700,614. Within each year the quota is split into four equal quarters, and Customs and Border Protection is directed to roll any unused quarterly quantity forward into the next quarter within 14 days of its close.
What the ITC found
The Commission transmitted its report to the President on 18 May, having reached an affirmative determination under section 202(b) of the Trade Act that quartz surface products are being imported in such increased quantities as to be a substantial cause of serious injury to the domestic industry. The Trade Representative asked for more information on 2 June. The Commission answered on 2 July, identifying the unforeseen developments that led to the increase.
The action is taken under section 203 of the Trade Act, and it is a quantitative measure rather than a flat tariff. The proclamation also records findings that the injury does not result from duty reductions under the United States-Israel Free Trade Agreement, nor from duty-free treatment under the Caribbean Basin Economic Recovery Act or the Generalized System of Preferences.
The exclusion list is longer than the measure
Canada and Mexico are out, on a finding that neither accounts for a substantial share of imports. So are Australia, Colombia, Costa Rica, the Dominican Republic, El Salvador, Guatemala, Honduras, Israel, Nicaragua, Panama, Peru, Singapore and South Korea, each under the implementing act for its own trade agreement. Caribbean Basin beneficiaries keep duty-free treatment. A further list of about a hundred developing countries is excluded as long as each stays below a 3 percent share of total imports and the group together stays below 9 percent.
Jordan is the interesting line. The Commission recommended excluding it under the United States-Jordan Free Trade Area Implementation Act. The President excluded it instead as a developing country, which puts it in the category that can be removed by the Trade Representative on a surge, rather than the category that cannot.
Everything not on those lists is inside the measure. The proclamation names no target.
Scope, and what sits outside it
Quartz surface products are defined by composition rather than by use: slabs and surfaces made predominantly of silica bound with a resin, where silica outweighs any other single material by actual weight. Pigments, cement and other additives do not take a product out. Neither does fabrication in a third country, so cutting, polishing, curing, edging or packaging a slab somewhere else does not change where it came from.
Quarried stone is not covered. Granite, marble, soapstone and quartzite are named and excluded, which means the rule runs along the seam between engineered and natural surfaces.
The duty is additional. Note 41(b) provides that it is cumulative with the ordinary chapter 68 and 70 rates and that antidumping, countervailing and other duties continue to be imposed on the same goods.
The Trade Representative is authorised to negotiate agreements limiting exports in return for suspending the measure against a partner, and those agreements may include commitments to invest in American production of unfinished slabs.
