President Trump is paying empty lip service to “affordability” while rigging costs to help Republicans claw their way back into a losing November election. He’s the author of the injury those tariffs inflicted on household budgets—and he’s the one who must stanch the financial hemorrhage that injury keeps opening. If he’s listening to working families instead of his donors, he’ll block the corporate grab that is now hurtling toward his desk.
One clear test case is quartz surface products, installed on some 36% of kitchen countertops in American homes last year. Quartz is also a staple for bathroom vanities, shower walls, and backsplash. A handful of domestic quartz slab producers, led by Minnesota-based Cambria and CEO Marty Davis, a wealthy Trump patron who expects a return on his investment, wants to use Section 201 of the Trade Act of 1974 to crush the competition: American quartz fabricators who rely on imported slab. The petitioners have dressed their demand in the rhetoric of protecting American manufacturing, but the only thing they’re protecting is their own bloated profit margins. If they prevail, costlier new homes and thousands of jobs destroyed in the U.S. quartz fabricating industry will be the price paid to subsidize domestic monopolists while working families pick up the wreckage.
The International Trade Commission ruled 2-1 in April in favor of a petition under the banner of “protection,” alleging that quartz imports are causing “substantial” harm to domestic monopolies. Both Democratic commissioners backed the corporate petitioners; the lone Republican voted against it. On May 5, those two Democrats issued their monopoly-seeking remedy recommendations: a four-year tariff-rate quota with a 25% tax on imports below the quota and a 40% tax on imports once the quota is reached. They propose a quota of between 140 million and 154 million square feet for the first year. For context, in 2024 the U.S. imported 234 million square feet—so this quota is designed to restrict supply sharply, drive up prices, and funnel billions into a handful of politically connected companies. The commissioners carve out exemptions for countries with free-trade agreements, but none of the top five supplying nations in 2025 qualify. According to U.S. census data, they are India, Vietnam, Thailand, Spain, and Malaysia.
The ITC doesn’t allege unfair trade practices by the foreign producers. And the gross profit margins of U.S. slab producers in 2024 were a bloated 38%, according to an ITC staff report. As Illinois Rep. Raja Krishnamoorthi wrote in a March 27 letter to ITC chair Amy Karpel, “these multinational companies’ share of the surface products market has remained consistent for years… They remain profitable and have made major recent investments in their U.S. manufacturing facilities.” There is no crisis here—no flood of cheap imports destroying a struggling industry. The slab producers are already feasting, and they want the government to force everyone else to pay for a bigger table.
Some 10,000 small U.S. fabricators—the shops that cut, polish, and install quartz countertops—rely on imported quartz, employing some 100,000 workers. That’s ten times the number employed by the petitioners, according to Mr. Krishnamoorthi. The fabricators are not the donor class’s captive suppliers; they are Main Street businesses that transform raw slabs into finished surfaces, generating good middle-class jobs in every part of the country. The tariff would kneecap these small fabricators while their giant competitors pocket the windfall. So who is the commission trying to “safeguard”? The donors, of course.
The domestic slab industry caters to the luxury market, while American companies that import and fabricate quartz serve the middle market. Any hope that higher-priced imports will force middle-income Americans into high-priced domestic products is exactly the monopoly playbook—it’s not protectionism, it’s extortion. In testimony to the ITC, Ken Gear, CEO of the Leading Builders of America, representing 22 of the largest home builders, said his members work hard to hold down the price of a new home. The tariff won’t juice demand for pricier options; it will drain working families’ wallets and destroy the market for quartz altogether. “New tariffs or quotas will not redirect demand for quartz. It will destroy it,” he said. Builders and buyers will switch to granite and other substitutes, and the taxpayer will be left holding the bag for a donor-class heist.
The ITC’s remedy recommendation hit Mr. Trump’s desk on May 18. He has 60 days to rule as he pleases. He can side with the 100,000 fabricators, their families, and the homebuyers who just want a decent countertop, or he can reward a wealthy patron and a handful of monopolists. The choice is stark: a tariff that is solid as quartz for the 1%, or a decision that lets working Americans keep their jobs and their kitchen budgets. If he’s listening to the country, he’ll let this corporate power grab die.