Brazil 301 Tariffs: Spare All Natural Stone  

WASHINGTON – Natural-stone advocates may have come last in the recent hearings here on new tariffs for Brazil, but they certainly weren’t the least when it came to presentation their case.

Members of stone industry associations and one major fabricator asked a panel convened by the United States Trade Representative (USTR) on July 7 to exempt all Brazilian natural stone from a proposed 25% Section 301 tariff.

“Large American companies import thousands of containers from Brazil every year to serve the homebuilding and remodeling markets,” said Fabio Cruz, vice president of the Brazilian natural-stone association Centrorochas. “These are not speculative purchases. They are long-term investments made by American companies to serve American customers.

The stone-industry representatives spoke as part of the last of 14 groups appearing before the USTR during two days of hearings on the proposed general tariff. The USTR began its investigation a year ago and made its recommendation for the tariff, allowed under Section 301 of U.S. trade law, last month.

The USTR recommendation exempts quartzite and stone classified under the omnibus Other Stone sector, but would apply the proposed tariff on granite, marble, travertine, slate and other calcareous stone from Brazil.

The USTR cites unfair-trade policies and practices by Brazil in the following areas:

• Digital trade and electronic payment services;
• Unfair preferential tariffs;
• Anti-correction enforcement;
• Intellectual property protection;
• Ethanol market access; and
• Illegal deforestation.

In asking for natural-stone exclusion from the proposed tariff, Cruz noted that “these produces fall outside the scope of the issues under review, and are part of a supply chain that has supported American jobs, American investment, and American businesses for decades.”

Cruz testified that Centrorochas represents more than 200 companies supplying nearly 10,000 U.S. companies importing Brazilian natural stone in the past 12 months.

“Our member companies support a broad network of American businesses, from large natural distributors to independent fabricators serving local communities across the country,” he told the panel.

Cruz added that the tariff exemption would cover products that “generally do not compete directly with equivalent domestic production.”

Others comment on behalf of Brazilian natural stone noted that U.S.-quarried products are strong in commercial and hardscape construction, but that stone from Brazil is the most-popular choice for residential construction.

Janelle Edmonds, chief supply officer of Houston-based Wisenbacker Building Services, noted that Brazilian natural stone plays an important rolein providing countertops and other residential products as part of its turnkey builder services.

“In 2025, my company fabricated nearly 523,000 ft² of natural stone, of which 97% was imported from Brazil,” she told the committee. “For every foot of imported stone, we add $16 dollars of domestic labor and materials in the fabrication process. This is roughly 3.4x the value of the raw material.”

Edmonds also noted that natural stone offers a feasible cost for builders of residential products.

“If imported natural stone from Brazil becomes more expensive, the base cost of homes would go up for the homebuilder and more importantly the homebuyer,” she said. “The emphasis on affordable housing cannot be more important. The negative impact on employment and profitability in our fabrication business and that of many other U.S. fabricators would also be substantial.”

Under questioning by the USTR panel, Cruz noted that there are other sources of natural stone, but the unique qualities of a particular source means that “one stone cannot always be replaced simply because it calls under the same category or classification.”

He added that many projects now underway specify stones from Brazil.

“In those cases, changing the source of supply may require new material selection, redesign, additional testing, customer approval, and adjustments in fabrication and installation,” Cruz said. “That will definitely lead to a higher cost, delays, cancelled orders, inventory loss, and disruption throughout the American supply chain.”

A final decision on Section 301 tariffs applied to Brazil will be made later this year.

The Brazil action is one of seven current Section 301 investigations initiated during the Trump administration. One on good produced by forced labor cites 60 countries, including leading hard-surface tradition partners, including Brazil, Canada, China, the European Union, India, Mexico, Türkiye, and Vietnam.