The quartz safeguard keeps the ITC's quota and sets the over-quota tariff at the statute's ceiling

Two Commissioners of the International Trade Commission recommended that imports of quartz above a yearly quota pay an additional 40 percent duty². Proclamation 11051, signed July 31 and published today, sets that rate at 50 percent¹. The difference is ten points on paper and a good deal more in law: 50 percent ad valorem is the largest increase section 203 of the Trade Act of 1974 allows in any safeguard⁵. The President took the Commission’s quota volumes almost to the square foot, then pushed the over-quota rate to the statutory limit, cut the in-quota rate faster than recommended and declined to shield the new duty from the ones already in place^1,2. For importers of slabs and finished countertops, the measure that takes effect August 15 is a quota in form and something closer to a ceiling tariff for anything past it.

The instrument: a safeguard, not a trade-remedy order

Section 201 asks a narrower question than the antidumping laws. It does not require dumping or subsidies, only that imports have risen enough to be “a substantial cause of serious injury” to a domestic industry, and it lets the President act against imports from every source at once⁵. The Journal described the sequence, and its statutory limits, when the Commission opened a separate safeguard case on lamb in July. The quartz case is the one that has now reached the end of it.

The petition came from the Quartz Manufacturing Alliance of America: Cambria of Le Sueur, Minnesota, Dal-Tile, Guidoni USA of McRae-Helena, Georgia, and Hyundai L&C USA². The Commission deemed it properly filed on November 17, 2025, after more than 700 entities describing themselves as independent fabricators told it they opposed the case³. It found serious injury on April 1, 2026, with Commissioner David Johanson dissenting, and sent its report to the President on May 18². The Trade Policy Staff Committee, chaired by the Office of the U.S. Trade Representative (USTR), took written comments on the remedy and held a public hearing on June 16⁴. On June 2 USTR asked the Commission for more information; the Commission’s supplemental report of July 2 identified the “unforeseen developments” behind the import increase¹. That request reset the clock. Once a supplemental report is requested, the statute gives the President 30 days from its receipt to act, rather than 60 from the original report⁵. July 31 fell on the 29th day.

The statute also fixes when the measure bites and how it must wind down. A tariff or quota proclaimed under section 203 takes effect within 15 days, which accounts for August 15; it may last four years, extendable to eight; and any measure longer than a year “shall be phased down at regular intervals”⁵. A departure from the Commission’s recommendation has one more consequence. The President must explain the difference to Congress in detail, and Congress may then impose the Commission’s version by joint resolution within 90 days⁵.

The mechanism: four quarters, two headings, one cumulative rate

The safeguard covers quartz surface products, defined as slabs and other surfaces made mostly of silica with a resin binder, in which silica outweighs any other single material¹. The scope runs from 45-to-60-square-foot slabs through countertops, vanity tops, backsplashes, flooring and tiles, and it applies whether the product is polished or not, fabricated or not, or attached to a sink or cabinet^1,3. Quartz cut, polished or packaged in a third country remains in scope; granite, marble, soapstone and quartzite do not¹. The covered statistical lines are HTSUS 6810.99.0020, 6810.99.0040 and 7020.00.6000¹.

Entries are reported under two new chapter 99 headings. Heading 9903.45.30 carries the in-quota rate and 9903.45.31 the over-quota rate¹. The first year’s quota is 13,006,426 square meters, about 140 million square feet, split into four equal quarters of 3,251,606 square meters beginning August 15, November 15, February 14 and May 16¹. Unused quota rolls into the next quarter, and Customs and Border Protection must add it within 14 days of the quarter’s close¹. Quarterly administration was the Commission’s idea, intended, in the petitioners’ words, to “prevent front-loaded import surges”^2,10.

The schedule over four years:

• August 15, 2026 to August 14, 2027: 25 percent in quota, 50 percent above it [1].
• 2027-28: 23 and 49 percent, on a quota of 14,771,583 square meters [1].
• 2028-29: 21 and 48 percent, on 15,236,099 square meters [1].
• 2029-30: 19 and 47 percent, on 15,700,614 square meters [1].

The volumes convert to the 140, 159, 164 and 169 million square feet the Commission proposed². The rates do not. The Commission recommended 25 percent in quota falling one point a year to 22, and 40 percent above quota falling to 37². Under the proclamation the in-quota rate falls two points a year, and the over-quota rate starts ten points higher and stays there¹.

Three other choices matter for compliance. The duties are “cumulative,” added to the column 1 rate, and the proclamation states that antidumping and countervailing duties “shall continue to be imposed”¹. Commissioner Jason Kearns had recommended the opposite, de-stacking the safeguard from other tariffs except trade-remedy duties, and an exclusion process for products not made in the United States². The proclamation contains neither. Second, quartz admitted to a foreign-trade zone from August 15 must take privileged foreign status, which locks in the safeguard on later entry for consumption¹. Third, the exclusions are broad. Canada and Mexico are out under the USMCA Implementation Act; Australia, Colombia, the six CAFTA-DR countries, Israel, Panama, Peru, Singapore and South Korea are out under their agreements; so are Caribbean Basin beneficiaries and a list of developing countries running from Afghanistan to Zimbabwe, which includes Brazil and Indonesia¹. Jordan is excluded too, though on developing-country grounds rather than under its trade agreement, as the Commission had proposed¹. India, China and Türkiye are on none of the lists¹.

The effect: slab makers against fabricators

The beneficiaries are the slab producers that brought the case. In May the alliance said “100,000 American jobs” were at risk, and Cambria’s chief executive, Marty Davis, asked the President to impose “a 50% tariff and a hard quota cap”¹⁰. The over-quota rate gives him the first. Whether the quota works as a hard cap depends on how quickly it fills; the proclamation sets no import ban, only a higher rate past the line¹.

The cost falls first on fabricators, the shops that cut and install countertops, and on the builders who buy from them. Hogan Lovells represents the opposing Save Quartz Jobs Coalition⁹. On the Stone World podcast in March, Stoel, co-head of the firm’s international trade practice, estimated that fabricators account for more than 100,000 U.S. jobs, and the coalition said it had gathered over 1,000 fabricator declarations against the case⁸. A Capital Trade study commissioned by the coalition projected that a 50 percent tariff would raise quartz costs by about 70 percent and cause roughly $730 million in net harm to the economy⁸. The two sides disagree sharply on what that means for a house: Cambria’s team put the added cost at $188 for an average single-family home, while the coalition put it above $1,000⁹. Ken Gear of Leading Builders of America said builders are “unable these days to pass along cost increases”⁸.

The country exclusions shape who carries the burden among suppliers. Excluded imports do not count against the quota¹, so a Korean, Mexican or Israeli slab enters free of the safeguard while Indian, Chinese and Turkish product competes for 3.25 million square meters a quarter. Indian and Turkish quartz already faces antidumping and countervailing duty orders dating from June 2020, continued after a sunset review⁷. The safeguard sits on top. The proclamation anticipates the obvious response: if imports from an excluded country surge, USTR “shall extend” the measure to that country, and it may act against circumvention by revising the tariff note¹.

The longer view: the washers template, applied with less give

The closest model is the 2018 safeguard on large residential washers. Proclamation 9694 also used a tariff-rate quota, also started the over-quota rate at 50 percent and also excluded developing countries under the same 3 and 9 percent import-share tests⁶. The difference is the phase-down. For washers the over-quota rate dropped from 50 to 45 to 40 percent over three years⁶. For quartz it drops one point a year, to 47¹. Both satisfy the statute’s demand for reduction “at regular intervals”⁵. The quartz schedule meets it with one-point steps spread over four years instead of three.

The proclamation also looks past tariffs. Clause 8 authorizes USTR to negotiate agreements limiting exports to the United States, which “may also include commitments to invest in QSP production” here, including unfinished slabs, in return for suspending the measure for that partner¹. That turns the safeguard into a bargaining position, using the orderly-marketing authority in section 203(a)(3)(E) of the Trade Act^1,5. No such agreement had been announced as of publication.

Several dates now follow. Under the proclamation, any change arising from WTO safeguard consultations must be decided within 30 days of July 31 and imposed within 40¹. The first quarterly quota opens August 15 and closes November 14¹. Because the action differs from the Commission’s recommendation, the 90-day window in which Congress could enact the Commission’s version by joint resolution opens when the President’s statement of reasons reaches Congress⁵. The first scheduled cut, to 23 and 49 percent, applies to goods entered on or after August 15, 2027¹.