Americans are already facing a difficult housing market in which buying a home or making renovations has become more expensive. Even something as basic as replacing a kitchen countertop now carries a higher price tag than it did a few years ago. A proposed tariff on quartz surface products would make matters worse.

The US International Trade Commission (ITC) ruled last month that imported quartz surfaces are harming domestic quartz manufacturers. The ultimate decision about whether to impose quartz tariffs now rests with President Trump. If he decides to implement them, the effects will extend far beyond the manufacturers the policy is intended to protect.

The ripple effect begins with a simple mechanism: tariffs are taxes on imports, and importers pass those costs forward. They would raise the cost of importing quartz slabs, which are used in construction and remodeling. Importers and fabricators would face higher input costs, which they typically pass along the supply chain. Builders, contractors, and remodelers would then pay more for materials, and those higher costs would ultimately be reflected in the prices paid by homeowners and buyers of new homes. In a prior estimate, I found that this would increase the cost of a typical quartz countertop from $504 to $1,036 per kitchen.

Higher prices change household decisions. Some households might postpone renovations, hoping that prices will drop. Others will scale back upgrades or opt for different materials. And some will simply decide not to pursue the project at all. 

Those household choices reverberate far beyond individual projects. Imported slabs move first through distributors and fabricators, where they are cut, finished, and prepared for installation. From there, installers, contractors, and remodelers carry out the work in homes and new construction projects. Each step depends on steady demand for affordable quartz products.

When fewer renovations and installations are undertaken, demand falls across the entire quartz supply chain. Fabricators receive fewer orders, installers complete fewer jobs, and contractors and remodelers see reduced work in both new construction and renovation.

In the ITC proceedings last April, plaintiffs projected a gain of roughly 500 jobs under the proposed quartz tariffs. At the same time, respondents estimated that more than 6,400 jobs in fabrication, installation, and related construction activity are at risk. That amounts to about 13 jobs lost for every one job gained under the proposed tariff.

This outcome is not unique or unforeseeable. Prior U.S. tariff episodes have often produced concentrated gains alongside larger downstream losses. An International Monetary Fund analysis of 151 countries similarly found that tariffs lead to net job losses. What begins as a targeted intervention in one industry commonly translates into fewer work hours and jobs across others.

Good trade policy should account for all affected parties, not just the industry seeking protection. Quartz tariffs would raise costs for consumers while reducing work for a far larger set of downstream workers in fabrication, installation, and construction. Any gains for a small group of producers would come at the expense of many more households and employees across the supply chain. That is not sound trade policy — it is the protection of a few at the expense of many.

Quartz tariffs reflect a broader structural problem in U.S. trade policy: too much discretion rests with the executive branch to impose tariffs. When that authority is used, the costs of protection are spread widely across households and downstream workers, while the benefits remain concentrated in a small number of industries.

The remedy is institutional reform. Presidents should not have open-ended tariff authority. Congress should reclaim the taxing power it has delegated away and take back its constitutional role in trade policy. Without that shift, the same pattern of broad harm and narrow benefit is likely to repeat.

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